


Trust and Other Catastrophes

by Zee (orphan_account)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-26
Updated: 2012-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-10 19:18:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Zee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is sorry that he's hurting Derek's feelings and all, but his reasons for keeping Lydia's secrets just jumped from gotta-have-integrity to gotta-keep-Lydia-from-getting-taken-out-by-ruthless-werewolves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust and Other Catastrophes

**Author's Note:**

> Goes AU right around 2x07 or so. There's violence and people getting possessed, but nothing more violent or more disturbing than what happens in the show. A ton of thanks to Kickthebeat and Gigantic for the encouragement and help.

“Aaah,” Stiles says as he runs to the drivers’ side of his car, his sneakers skidding on the wet asphalt. It’s kinda difficult to fumble his keys into the lock while also ducking as freaking _arrows_ whiz by his head, but he does it, and—God dammit—he can see Derek on the other side of his jeep, roaring and ducking his own share of arrows and throttling the door handle as if yanking the door off of Stiles’ jeep will improve anything.

“All right all right Jesus Christ!” Stiles flails across the seats to unlock the door and Derek yanks it open, jumping in and yelling “Go!” as if that’s something Stiles really needs to be told right now.

Stiles gets the keys in the ignition. But—“What about Scott? Look, they’re following them—“ Because he can see that Gerard and the other hunters have stopped shooting at him and Derek, and are now hot in pursuit of Scott, Erica, Isaac and Boyd; Allison is following the hunters, yelling at her father and—wow, did she really just throw a punch at that guy in the S.W.A.T. suit? Stiles loves Allison.

“They’ll be fine. They’re stronger together.” But Derek is staring after his little wolf buddies with an intense, nostril-flare-y expression on his face, like he’s trying to convince himself as much as Stiles. 

And Stiles really, seriously doesn’t want to leave Scott, but—the whole point of splitting up was so that some of them could escape while the other half drew fire, and four werewolves together probably have a pretty decent chance of losing their followers, right? Maybe?

“Scott will take care of them,” Derek says, and okay, he’s probably right. Plus, he’s got two arrows sticking out of his—okay, now only _one_ arrow sticking out of his thigh, considering that he just yanked the second one out with a grunt. Jesus. 

“God dammit, fine,” Stiles says, getting his poor put-upon Jeep into reverse and making the tires squeal as he gets them out of there. 

He can’t take Derek back to his creepy little abandoned train car, seeing as it will now be swarming with hunters. Which means their only choice is Stiles’ house, in the hope that the Argents won’t be so bug-fuck nuts as to invade the very-much-human sheriff’s home. 

“You know, in case you were wondering,” Stiles snaps, fear and adrenaline giving way to a whole lot of anger. “This is _exactly why_ we tried to stop you from turning a bunch of our classmates into werewolves. Because now those three are on the loose on a full moon when they have no real idea how to control themselves, as well as running from their lives from a bunch of highly trained hunters who have been killing their kind for—I don’t know, decades probably! They’re running from people who probably know more about what they can do than _they_ do!”

“I know that.” 

“Oh yeah? Well if you’re so freaking smart than maybe you can tell me why you picked three _teenagers_ for your creepy little cult, huh?” That gets an almost-reaction—Derek actually looks at him, startled. “Yeah, you’re supposed to be an adult, right? In your twenties, past the legal drinking age, been out of high school for more years than you spent enrolled in high school? So why haven’t you been making life miserable for your actual peer group, huh?”

Derek just snarls at him—a real snarl, with real teeth, and there was a time when that would have frightened Stiles into silence, but their relationship has evolved—and viciously yanks the second arrow out of his thigh before going back to staring out the window. 

“Grrargh!” Stiles hits the steering wheel with both of his fists, harder than he really meant to, because sometimes Derek is just—the worst, the actual worst, and Stiles can’t believe that he’s 100% prepared to shelter this stupid asshole for the night. He tries to convey the full extent of his indignant rage by taking a corner too fast, but can’t bring himself to run through the nest stop sign, even though there aren’t any other cars at the intersection.

They lapse into pissed-off, bleeding silence for a few more blocks before Derek speaks. “It’s not exactly a choice. When you’re an alpha, the people you turn—it’s not...” he sighs, finally looking at Stiles again. “It’s not that simple.”

“Oh, come on, I spent enough time with your crazy uncle to know that that’s not true.” Stiles points a finger as accusingly as he knows how. “It is _so_ a choice, and your choice has been to take advantage of a bunch of emotionally damaged kids just so that you can be more powerful.”

Derek glares at him, the special you’re-such-a-moron glare that Stiles has begun to think of as all his own. “It’s not about power! When you’re a lone alpha—“ Derek cuts himself off, his glare turning into something else. “The solitude is like—it’s almost a physical pain. Getting away from that is a compulsion.”

Derek’s wearing the morose version of Blue Steel on his face, and Stiles has to admit, it’s a good look. He swallows and shakes himself, trying to get back to the anger and away from the attraction. “That still doesn’t account for your taste for teenage buddies.”

Derek sighs. “Creating a pack isn’t just about finding people who say yes to the bite. They have to want a family, too, enough that they’re willing to risk all of the things that they’d have to give up in their human lives. They have to be lonely and maybe a little reckless, too. And when you’re an alpha looking for a pack, it’s like you’ve got this sixth sense—you’re drawn to those people, you know who to go for the second you see them.” Derek looks at Stiles, a little of that specific I-hate-Stiles sneer back in his eyes. “Now, can you think of a group likelier to display these personality traits than teenagers?”

Fair point. “Okay, but that totally doesn’t explain why your uncle chose Scott, of all people, to bite. The guy didn’t exactly have a huge well of secret teen angst to draw from, unless you count frustration over not being a good lacrosse player.”

“Peter was coming out of a six-year-coma. I’m not sure he could recognize any of this in what he was feeling, or maybe he wasn’t feeling it at all. Maybe it’s just me.” Derek grimaces and looks back out the window. “I don’t know. There’s a lot I wasn’t able to learn from my parents, before the fire.”

Stiles would like to stay mad, because none of this changes the fact that it’s totally Derek’s fault that Erica, Isaac and Boyd might get cut in half by their own principal tonight. But he feels his anger draining away as he pulls into his driveway. Neither of them move to get out of the car; Derek stares out the window and Stiles watches the rise and fall of Derek’s chest. And the drops of sweat dripping down his neck. And the tension in his shoulders. And the tightness of his jeans. Dammit.

If anyone were to ever imply that Stiles’ heart belonged to someone who wasn’t Lydia, Stiles would totally punch them out. It’s been Lydia since before puberty was even on the horizon, and it will be Lydia long after Derek has gone on his grouchy way. Whatever Stiles definitely doesn’t feel for Derek is nothing like Stiles’ love for Lydia, it’s just, well, every straight guy has their exception, right? That one guy that’s hot enough to make them briefly—briefly! temporarily--reconsider their heterosexuality. 

It’s just that for most guys, those exceptions are Vin Diesel or Batman or whatever, guys that are either famous or fictional and won’t ever actually be around to tempt anyone. Stiles’ exception happens to be bleeding from his thigh on the passenger seat a foot away from him. 

“Right,” Stiles says, cutting off the engine. “Let’s get you good and hidden away before my dad gets home.”

Stiles really wishes that he had a secret batcave or something, any other place to hide Derek from his dad that’s not his bedroom. He should have started building a secret hideout for the safe-keeping of fugitives after the first time he got stuck with sheltering Derek, but hindsight is 20/20 and the situation is what it is. 

They climb the stairs to Stiles’ room, and Stiles flops down on his bed as soon as Derek shuts the door behind him. He can feel the physical exhaustion that adrenaline has left behind, although he mostly still feels all revved up. “You wanna shower or anything?” he says to the ceiling.

“No.” Stiles watches Derek shrug off his jacket and toss it in the corner. And then Derek just stands there in the beam of moonlight coming through Stiles’ window, his fists clenched at his sides and an attractive scowl on his face, like he’s honest-to-God posing for a magazine shoot or something. Stiles pushes himself up to his elbows and opens his mouth to tell Derek to stop being so self-involved and get the air mattress out of the closet, but what comes out is,

“Look, they’ll be okay. Even if they didn’t have supernatural powers and strength in numbers, Allison’s not going to just stand by and let her relatives do their thing.”

Derek blinks and looks at him like he’d forgotten that Stiles was in the room. “I hope you’re right.” He sighs and some of his muscles un-bunch and Stiles fails at looking at his eyes instead of his—everything else.

“When am I not right?” Stiles sits all the way up, which puts him roughly at eye level with Derek’s nipples, the outlines of which he can just barely see through his t-shirt. 

“You don’t want me to answer that.” Derek smirks, and Stiles’ not-a-crush is strongest at times like this, when Derek acts almost like a normal person rather than a deadly freakshow of death. 

“Actually, please enlighten me as to any time you can remember me being wrong rather than right, because I’m pulling a blank.” Derek gives him an annoyed, skeptical look, which is a good look on him, especially when directed at Stiles. “See? You’ve got nothing, you can’t think of anything either. I rest my case.”

Derek’s expression changes just a fraction, and then he laughs a little bit and looks down at the floor. “Uh.”

“What?” Stiles is pretty sure that this is the first time he’s ever seen Derek Hale embarrassed about anything.

“Nothing, just...” Derek makes an inexplicable hand gesture and glances up at Stiles. “I can smell your, um, your feelings.” 

Of course. It’s the full moon and Derek can smell his crush because Stiles can never catch a break, ever. 

“Oh, and it’s hilarious, right?” Stiles feels anger come back in to cover up the humiliation, and he goes with it, standing up. “Funny old Stiles, always available to be threatened or provide comic relief!”

“I wasn’t—“ 

“Shut up! Shut up, okay, I’m ranting and you’re listening.” Stiles jabs a finger at Derek’s chest. “I am a force to be reckoned with, okay? And I have had it with your lame-ass threats and the condescension that you use to cover up the fact that you _hate_ that I’m smarter than you and keep saving your life.” 

Derek frowns and doesn’t move back as Stiles moves forward. “You’re not—“

“ _Shut up,_ I freaking hate you,” Stiles says, before grabbing Derek’s t-shirt with both hands and kissing him.

It’s a pretty terrible kiss at first, with Stiles’ nose cartilage getting painfully smushed and Derek’s mouth being totally unyielding so that it’s kind of like kissing a wall that’s going to give you stubble-burn. But then Derek tilts his head just-so, and grabs Stiles’ shoulders but doesn’t push him away, and the painful smushing turns into kind of a real kiss? Not that Stiles has much basis for comparison, but this feels kiss-like. There’s heat and pressure and the wet slide of Derek’s lips, and Stiles starts to open his mouth to really go for it, but then Derek steps away.

“What—Stiles—what are you doing?” 

“Um.” Stiles waits for his brain to kick in and provide an answer, but it seems like he’ll be getting no help in that department. “I don’t know?”

Derek stares at him for a second, and then his gaze flick downward, over Stiles’ chest and then lower. He’s flushed he’s breathing hard, and it’s kind of similar to the way he looks when he’s saving Stiles from death-by-hunter-or-lizard, except that his face—he looks flustered and unsure, miles away from his single-mindedness during any kind of fight. Stiles had no idea that he was capable of having this effect on Derek, but he likes it.

“Okay,” Stiles says, mostly to himself, and moves back into Derek’s personal space. He kisses him again, half-expecting Derek to shove him off, but instead Derek opens his mouth and grabs the back of Stiles’ head hard enough for it to kind of hurt. Stiles does his best to be an active participant, but Derek is kissing him like he’s trying to eat Stiles’ face off—in a sexy way. Derek’s other hand is at the small of his back, drawing Stiles in and pressing their chests together, and a small part of Stiles is screaming at him that he should be scared by how strong Derek is, by the extent to which he couldn’t immediately get out of this if he decided he wanted to. But he doesn’t want to, and any protests that the sensible part of Stiles might have die when he shifts his hips and presses in and feels that Derek is just as hard as he is. 

It feels good, so Stiles does the pressing thing again, and the effect is immediate: Derek breaks off the kiss and makes a high-pitched, choked-off noise that sounds way more vulnerable and human than Stiles ever expected Derek to sound. Stiles grabs Derek’s butt and grinds some more, then totters and almost falls when he suddenly has to support all of Derek’s weight because Derek slumps against him, pressing his face against Stiles’ neck and panting. 

“Whoa, okay.” Stiles takes a couple steps back, until he feels the bed hit the backs of his knees. Which, his bed! Is a great idea right now! He sits down and Derek is on top of him immediately, pushing him down onto his back and continuing with the face-sucking kisses. And then his mouth is on Stiles’ neck, whoa, his lips and his _teeth_ are on Stiles’ neck and there’s a lot of sucking and Stiles is pretty sure he’s going to have a hickey there tomorrow, which—is an idea that he likes a lot, actually. He arches up and there’s Derek’s erection again, making its presence felt and making Stiles go a little crazy.

“Pants, can you,” he says idiotically. Derek stops sucking on Stiles’ neck to stare at him, and Stiles clarifies what he means by fumbling at the fly of Derek’s jeans. He manages to get the belt almost unbuckled before Derek gives him an exasperated sigh and bats his hands away, sitting up on the bed to do it himself. 

Stiles gets his own pants off as quickly as he can, and is considering removing his shirt and his briefs as well, but then Derek kisses him again, the weight of his body pushing Stiles back down on the bed. And then Stiles feels Derek’s palm pushing against the shaft of his dick right before Derek’s fingers wrap around him, as much as they can with his briefs in the way. And Stiles almost wants to stop him so that he can take his underwear off, but Derek’s hand starts moving. Stiles can feel his hips jerking up against all that wonderful pressure, and warning bells go off in his head too late for him to do anything about it. He grabs Derek’s arms, says “Nyaarrgh” and comes in his briefs.

It takes a few seconds for the blood to stop pounding in his ears. When he opens his eyes, Derek is sitting up on his knees—straddling Stiles, but now at a slightly greater distance. He’s looking at his palm, which Stiles now realizes is probably slimed from the come leaking out of Stiles’ briefs. 

“So, hey, wow, that... just happened,” Stiles says, because if he doesn’t say something his brain is going to get stuck on how an older dude—an older werewolf dude--just gave him an unfortunately-brief handjob. “Pretty cool, I guess, as far as things like that, um, go.” He squeezes his eyes shut again and cringes at himself.

He hears Derek sigh. When he opens an eye to peek, Derek is wiping his hand on Stiles’ bed and looking kind of—well, it’s always impossible to read anything on Derek’s face, but he doesn’t look super gung-ho about the situation. Although when Stiles glances down, it’s clear that Derek’s still pretty hard.

Stiles watches his hand move like it’s someone else’s hand, and then he’s cupping Derek’s cock through his underwear, the cotton smooth against his palm. Derek makes a slightly-strangled noise but then he says “Don’t—“ and Stiles snatches his hand back. 

“I was just—I mean, turnabout’s fair play, right?”

Derek is staring at him like he wants to have Stiles for dinner, which is a look that Stiles gets often, but this time it’s in a sexy way, which is new. Or maybe it’s not so new; Stiles is a little confused on that count. 

As usual, Derek draws out the silence until it’s gone way past awkward before he speaks. “We should stop.” 

“Really? Because I was thinking the opposite of that.” Stiles sits all the way up so that he can look Derek in the eye.

“No. This is a terrible idea.” Derek starts moving away and pulling up his pants, and it’s not like Stiles can argue that it’s _not_ a terrible idea to have sex with Derek, but—

“What? No, come on, I realize I’m new to this whole sex thing but I’m fairly certain that both parties are supposed to orgasm.” He touches Derek’s hips and kisses him. Derek doesn’t move away immediately, and Stiles is thinking about moving his hand down to grope at Derek’s erection, but then Derek pulls back. He moves away from Stiles and gets to his feet so fast that he stumbles a bit, almost tripping over his pants, and Stiles is pretty sure that this is the first time he’s ever seen Derek be at all clumsy.

“Don’t worry about that! I’m—I’m fine,” and Derek isn’t just clumsy, he’s blushing. He looks totally disoriented and Stiles kind of wants to take advantage of it. Which might be a little mean, but he’s spent so much time being a flustered, terrified wreck around Derek Hale that he feels like this is only fair.

Stiles kicks his jeans off of his ankles and hops off the bed, crowding Derek as he gets his pants back on and zipped up. “Dude, unless werewolf anatomy is _dramatically_ different, and I’m pretty sure that Scott would’ve told me if that were the case, you’re not exactly fine just yet.” 

He reaches down to feel Derek through his jeans, and yup, there’s still a boner there. Derek goes still for a second, and Stiles can hear a quick intake of breath. But then his face darkens and he growls, showing sharp teeth for a second before planting a clawed hand on Stiles’ chest and shoving him back onto the bed. 

“You’re _sixteen._ This is not. Happening.” Fuck, Derek’s eyes are kind of red now. Stiles gets the distinct impression that he shouldn’t have pushed it, but the annoyance he felt earlier comes rushing back when Derek mentions his age, and he doesn’t shut up like he probably should. 

“In case you hadn’t noticed, it kind of already happened.” Stiles gestures at his own crotch, and Derek looks stricken. “And hey, screw you with that sixteen crap, how many times have I saved your life by now?”

“This is different.” Derek’s stern expression would probably be more believable if his eyes didn’t keep flicking away from Stiles’ eyes and down towards Stiles’ neck, chest, and crotch. Stiles feels a little twitch of awe uncurl in his belly, because no one has ever looked at his body like that—like they can’t help themselves, and it’s flattering and kind of scary and definitely very hard to believe.

He likes it. He thinks.

“Not that different. Look, I’m not Scott and I’m not lovesick. You don’t have to worry about me getting all clingy and whining because you haven’t called me or whatever. I can be chill.” He grips the edge of his bed, trying to put more certainty and casual vibes into his words than he really feels right now. “Besides, you know that my heart is promised to another,” he adds as an afterthought, because even Derek has probably noticed Stiles’ thing for Lydia at this point. 

Derek shakes his head. “I have to go. This was just—“ He closes his eyes for a second. “I plead temporary insanity.” 

Stiles throws up his hands and does his best not to admit to himself that he’s super disappointed that Derek’s leaving. “Whatever, but now that we’ve made out, I’m never going to listen to one of your threats ever again.”

Derek bares his teeth at him and his eyes glow red, but Stiles holds his gaze. “I’m _leaving_ now. This never happened.”

“Wait, where are you even going to spend the night?” Stiles asks, but Derek is already out the door.

* * *

“Oh, hey, what’s up, looks like you’re not dead, that’s pretty cool,” Stiles says, before hugging Scott hard enough that Scott bangs the back of his head against the wall of lockers.

“Ow,” Scott says, hugging back. 

“You look like shit though. No sleep on the full moon, huh?” Stiles steps back, relief still pulsing through him, as well as guilt that he hadn’t spent as much time last night worrying about Scott’s safety as he maybe would have otherwise. 

“Not so much.” Scott rubs his hands over his face. “We just stayed in the forest all night. It was... weird.”

“Well, yeah, you were hanging out with the biggest trifecta of weird that Beacon Hills has ever known.” 

“No, I mean—it was weird how easy it was to just... hang out with them. I didn’t feel out-of-control, I don’t think they did either, it all just felt really natural and right to be running around together.” Scott shakes his head, and they fall into step together, walking to class. “What about you? Did you and Derek get away okay? And have you seen Allison?”

Stiles opens his mouth to tell Scott all about his and Derek’s escape and making out with Derek and then Derek being a crazy drama queen, but finds himself hesitating. “Um, Allison? I don’t know, dude, I haven’t heard from her, I feel like she might be kind of in trouble with her family.”

“You mean she hasn’t texted you?” Scott looks like he wants to wring his hands, and Stiles claps a hand on his shoulder, as reassuring as he knows how.

“Maybe she’s grounded and has lost texting privileges. Dude, I’m sure she’s fine.”

“You’re probably right.” Scott looks mollified, and Stiles wrestles briefly with himself as they head into class. The window of opportunity for telling Scott about the Derek thing without it being weird (well, weirder) is swiftly closing; Stiles doesn’t know why he hasn’t already blurted out the whole sordid tale. He should, he knows—even beyond being his best friend, Scott knows Derek as well as any of them do, probably better than Stiles does. And it just seems wrong not to tell Scott about hooking up with someone. If Scott were to make out with a mysterious, hot older person and the first person he told wasn’t Stiles—well, that would never happen, because Scott tells Stiles everything. It’s what they do. 

But the thing is, Stiles has a bad feeling that if he were to tell Scott the whole story, Scott would agree with Derek about it being a terrible idea. And Stiles isn’t in the mood to hear it.

So he holds his tongue all through class, only talking when Scott asks him something, and Mr. Harris looks disappointed that Stiles isn’t giving him any reasons to hand out detention. As he trudges through his classes and lacross practice, he and Scott have so many other conversations—far too many of them about freaky supernatural shirt—that Derek has almost slipped from his mind. 

Almost. When he gets home and goes to his room, the memories hit him in waves. He’s not sure if he should be embarrassed or pissed off or worried or what. He kind of wants to send Derek a text to ask him where he spent the night last night and if he’s okay—because really, where else did he have to go, does he know anyone other than Stiles and Scott? Maybe Dr. Deaton took him in, but Stiles has a hard time imagining that. 

But he doesn’t have Derek’s number, and even if he did, he probably shouldn’t be sending him awkward post-hook-up texts. Because Derek shut him down, because Derek’s an alpha werewolf, because Derek doesn’t seem to be firmly on the “good guy” bandwagon. There are so many reasons for Stiles to put this from his mind.

He changes his sheets, and does his homework downstairs in the living room, and definitely doesn’t rehearse imaginary conversations in his head for the next time he sees Derek.

* * *

When a guy only ever shows up because he wants to induct your best friend into his creepy underage harem, threaten you for information, or because your lives are in mutual danger, how can you tell if he’s avoiding you? These are not questions that Stiles ever thought he would have to ask, but then, it’s also not the strangest quandary to come up since Scott became a werewolf. 

Not the strangest, but maybe the one that’s coming closest to driving Stiles bugfuck nuts. It’s been four days, and since the last time Stiles saw Derek, Jackson has disappeared from school, which means the kanima and its master are probably lurking somewhere waiting to make some big move; Lydia showed up on Allison’s doorstep with someone else’s blood all over her, saying things about the Hale family that there was no way she could’ve known; and, far as anyone knows, Allison’s terrible horrible no-good very bad grandfather still wants to murder anyone with fangs. And Allison is very much grounded and kept out of the loop on everything Argent-related. And the sum total of what they know about Erica, Isaac, and Boyd’s (whose identities are now all known by the aforementioned awful grandfather) whereabouts is that none of them have been in school since the full moon.

So. Considering the ongoing disaster that they’re all stuck in, Stiles is pretty sure that Derek should have showed up at _least_ once in the past week to yell at Stiles and try to bring Scott to the dark side, but no one’s seen him. Stiles personally feels that it’s highly irresponsible to let an impulsive hook-up interfere with the professional working relationship that Derek and Scott share.

“Can’t you sniff him out or something?” Stiles asks, after the second time visiting Derek’s old train car and finding it deserted. 

Scott scowls at the creepy, grimy windows as if they’re personally responsible. “The whole place just smells like hunters.”

“Well, yeah, Derek’s obviously taken his pack somewhere else. I don’t know, driving around town with your head out the window sort of worked that one time. We could try it again?”

“Except that he’s probably nowhere close to a paved road. Don’t you think he probably took them deep into the woods?”

“Uh, I guess, you sound like you’d know more about that than I do.” Ever since he spent a full moon night being all feral with three other werewolves, Scott has been occasionally demonstrating little gems of werewolf-wisdom like this, as if he suddenly knows a little something about his own species. It’s kind of disconcerting. 

Stiles can practically see Scott’s ears drooping as they head back to the car. “Look on the bright side, it means that Derek’s not bugging you to be one of his boxcar children.” Scott just gives him a dejected look as he goes around to the driver’s side and unlocks the car. “Hey, maybe he confronted the kanima without us and they took each other out! Two problems solved in one.” Stiles opens the passenger door while he talks, which means that he’s not looking when he moves to get in the car, which means he almost sits in Derek’s lap. 

“Looks like you still have at least two problems,” Derek says as Stiles shrieks and flails.

“Can’t you ever just call me like a normal person?” Scott bitches, as Stiles slithers into the back seat and concentrates on not dying from mortification.

“The Argents have your phone tapped and they’re watching both of your houses,” Derek says, for once actually providing a sensible explanation for his behavior. “I figured that you would come looking for me here eventually.”

“And you were right! Good dog!” Stiles says, because why stop being an asshole when he’s already got a running start? “And I don’t really want you and the kanima to kill each other, I mean, then who would I be scared of? I’d be fearless and that could be so dangerous for Beacon Hills.”

Derek twists in the front seat to give him a withering look but no verbal response. Probably just as well. Stiles mouths ‘sorry’ but Derek is already turning back around to talk to Scott. 

“The betas are safe. Thank you for staying with them on the full moon.” 

“Have the Argents come looking for them?” Scott sounds seriously concerned, and Derek sounds actually grateful. Stiles feels left out.

“Yes, but they haven’t found us. But there’s something else—“

“No! No other things _allowed_ , we are quite busy enough thank you.”

Derek grinds his teeth and ignores Stiles. “My uncle’s body has gone missing.”

Scott’s eyes go wide. “Your uncle the alpha?”

“Yes. And I think the kanima might be responsible.”

“Or whoever’s controlling the kanima, because Jackson was scared shitless by your uncle and there’s no way he wants anything to do with his gross remains all on his lonesome,” Stiles points out. “Also, what, why do you think they’re connected? Isn’t that kind of a huge coincidence?”

“It’s not a coincidence.” At least Derek is talking directly to him now, even if he still looks like he wants to break Stiles’ kneecaps. “There’s a lot of spells that use kanima venom, up to and including bringing people back from the dead.”

“Whaa—“ Scott starts to say, but Stiles speaks over him.

“Oh my God, there are so many things in that sentence that you should’ve told us _way_ before now!”

“How was I supposed to know that anyone wanted my uncle alive?”

“You still could have been forthcoming about the fact that, I don’t know, magic is real?”

“If that’s not something you’ve figured out by now, then I have no idea how you’ve managed to stay alive this long.” Derek has now twisted all the way around to face Stiles in the back, and he looks pissed enough that Stiles should, probably, be scared, but instead he just feels his own annoyance level rise to match Derek’s.

“Yeah, we have kind of been managing this ‘alive’ thing _in spite of_ rather than because of you, so—“

“Will you two please stop bickering, just for a second?” Scott is looking between them with a very distinct I-wish-I-was-with-Allison face. Derek’s face gets all tight and pissy and Stiles sighs loudly, slumping back against his seat.

“Right,” says Scott, looking kind of surprised that they listened to him. “So, um. You think the kanima stole Peter Hale’s body?”

“I think it’s a distinct possibility.” Derek glances at Stiles. “Yes, it could still be a coincidence. But I think it’s a lot less dangerous to assume otherwise.”

Stiles doesn’t like it when Derek is right. Scott asks Derek more questions that Derek doesn’t have answers for, and Stiles crosses his arms and stares out the window. He knows he’s sort of sulking, which is immature and probably not helping Derek to stop thinking of him as a kid. 

And why does he care what Derek thinks of him as? Last week, Stiles never would have considered Derek as, like, a serious romantic possibility—sure, Stiles is sixteen and horny and not about to say no to anyone who wants to jerk him off, but Derek is _Derek_ : can’t take a joke, Original Mr. Grumpypants, about as fun to hang out with as a lump of coal. Derek, therefore, would never have been Stiles’ first choice, regardless of the fact that he sometimes looks like he stepped out of Playgirl. 

But the thought that the one person who’s wanted some Stiles action lately (or ever) is turning him down because he thinks Stiles is too immature? It’s kind of worse than never getting any action in the first place. 

“So, where are you living these days?” Stiles pipes up after Scott and Derek have discussed what they know (zilch) and what they can do about it (bupkiss). “Are you squatting in a different condemned building like a homeless person, or are you just not sleeping anywhere at all?”

Derek gives him a look of disgust, but luckily Scott is there to be more earnest and less insulting. “Remember how we had to bring Erica to you when she had that seizure? What if something else like that happens? We’re working together now, we should be able to find you.”

Derek harrumphs. “Fine. I’m at the corner of Sherwood and MLK. The basement apartment.” 

“The corner of—wait.” Stiles frowns. “Are you talking about that huge creepy half-finished _haunted house?_ Jesus Derek, I was kidding, are you allergic to signing legitimate leases or something?”

“See you later, Scott,” Derek says pointedly, as he exits the car. Stiles groans and lets his head thunk against the window.

“Dude...” Scott is looking between him and the empty front seat, his eyebrows crinkling up in confusion.

“What?” Stiles snaps.

“You just need to take a chill pill, is all. Come on, you want to get in the front? Otherwise I’m gonna feel like a taxi driver.”

* * *

Stiles knows that going to Lydia’s house is a bad idea that will accomplish nothing. The last time he tried this, her mom wouldn’t let him into the house because her daughter was resting and wanted no visitors; she’s been avoiding him at school, and when Stiles begged her number from Allison and sent her texts asking how she was doing, she didn’t reply to a single one. She doesn’t want help, or support, or anything from Stiles, and Stiles isn’t sure if that’s because a) she doesn’t want help from anyone, b) she doesn’t want help from Stiles, specifically, because she’s still pissed at him about promising to talk to her about serious emotional stuff and then failing to show up, or c) she could not give less of a shit about Stiles and his help and his willingness to talk. 

He wishes, not for the first time, that they’d actually been able to talk and get to know each other the night of the formal, instead of her getting bit and him getting blackmailed/kidnapped into helping a killer. He knows that his losing one of the only shots he’s ever had with Lydia is not the thing that he should be most upset about from that night—and it’s not, not really, but it still makes him feel crappy when he thinks about it.

Neither of Lydia’s parents’ cars is in the driveway when he walks up to her doorstep, which means that either she’ll have to answer the door herself (or not answer it at all, which is maybe likelier). Stiles hits the doorbell a couple of times and rocks back on his heels and hopes. 

“Hey! Hey, Lydia, wow, I didn’t actually expect you to open the door,” he says when she opens the door. “I mean! I mean, don’t shut the door in my face, hi, I just came by to see how you were doing and if you wanted to, um, talk?”

Lydia stops closing the door and looks at him. Her eyes are bloodshot and a little crazy-looking, but Stiles isn’t going to hold that against her. She can have crazy eyes if she wants to. “I’m fine. And I don’t want to talk.”

“Yeah, yeah I know, of course you are and of course you don’t. But—but I mean, I know that if it were me, I would be kind of upset after having another fugue state experience that involved a lot of blood, so I thought—well, I don’t know, sometimes it’s easier to talk about hard stuff to people that you don’t actually care about! Kind of like whispering secrets into a hole, that sort of thing.” 

Lydia’s looking at him like he has two heads, but the door is still open. “Except that anything I tell you, you’ll turn around and tell Scott, so it would actually be kind of like the _opposite_ of whispering ‘King Midas has donkey’s ears’ into a river bank, wouldn’t it?”

Stiles feels his mouth making shapes that don’t quite turn into words. “I can keep a secret! I mean, okay, yeah, Scott is like my conjoined twin most of the time, but—you’re you, and if there’s anything you want to tell me that you don’t want me to tell Scott? Anything, and I include a secret history of mass murder here, then I promise you, my lips are sealed.” Stiles swallows hard, because admitting to Lydia the extent of his feelings still makes him break out into a cold sweat, even though he gave up trying to hide it ages ago.

The look in Lydia’s eyes softens slightly. “Well. Thanks. That’s—nice of you, but I still have nothing to say.” She shrugs, and presses her lips together, looking for all the world like she has a whole lot of something to say but is terrified to. “I don’t remember anything that happened. I just remember waking up with Allison’s creepy parents standing over me.” 

“Right. Um.” Stiles briefly wrestles with himself, because he knows that if Derek and Scott and the Argents were here they would probably all yell at him not to give any hints about any supernatural whatever to someone who isn’t involved, but—he remembers Lydia talking about the Hale family on Allison’s front porch, before she passed out and woke up from the fugue. “You know, if there’s anything really—weird—going on that you maybe want to tell someone but you’re afraid that they would think you’re crazy? You can, um, tell me.”

Lydia laughs. “Weird how? Weird like not being able to keep my shit together after getting nearly eviscerated? Weird like suddenly being a piranha to the whole school? Or weird like me giving you the time of day after you ditched me, while I was _crying_ , at the game?”

Stiles cringes. “Weird like none of those things. Weird like—like magic and vampires and werewolves and shit, okay? Weird like stuff that you really can’t explain and that you think no one would believe you about if you tried.” He takes a breath, tries to meet her eyes, but she’s staring at the floor. “I’m just saying. There’s nothing you can say to me right now that will make me think that you’re crazy or not telling the truth.”

Lydia doesn’t say anything and doesn’t look up from her favorite spot on the floor. Stiles stares at her forehead and starts counting the seconds, and is figuring that he should just leave with the remains of his dignity while he can, when she says, 

“It wasn’t a fugue state. Not like the first one, at least.” She takes a deep, shuddering breath, and looks up at him. “I remember things from it. But it’s pretty weird.”

“Well that’s great, because like I just said, I love weird! Weird is my favorite conversation topic.” Stiles spreads his hands and grins like an idiot, super relieved that the silence is broken. “Let’s tell your best buddy Stiles all about the weirdest things you remember from that night, hm?”

Amazingly enough, she actually lets him into her house after that instead of slamming the door in his face like he deserves for being such a fucking dork. She locks the door behind him and then leans against it, looking like she’s already questioning her decision to let him in. 

“What I remember.” She gives him a skeptical look and folds her arms. “I remember walking to a house at night, and going inside without knocking. The only person home was a teenage boy. And I knew his name—I don’t know how, because I swear I’d never seen him before in my life, but I _knew_ him. It was Harold McKinley.”

Something about that name tugs at Stiles’ memory. He frowns. “Okay. Go on.”

She gives him another look like she’s expecting him to laugh, and then takes a slow breath and continues. “And I was angry at him. Really angry. I was telling him all these things about how he’d betrayed me, and I hated him, and I would never let him have—her. I think—it felt like I was a boy, and I’m pretty sure that I was mad at him for stealing my girlfriend, or something like that.” 

“And then.” She stops for more deep breaths, staring over Stiles’ shoulder like she’s not seeing anything in front of her, and when Stiles reaches out, she lets him gently squeeze her shoulder. “Then my hands grew claws. And I ripped his throat out.”

Stiles’ mouth goes dry. “Claws. What kind of claws?”

“I don’t fucking know Stiles, claws that could kill someone!” She yanks her arm out of his grasp and covers her face with her hands, smothering a sob. 

“Lydia, I’m sure you didn’t—“

“Kill someone? No.” She takes her hands away from her face, tossing her hair back a little. “I looked up Harold McKinley, and he died last year. When he was in his forties. So it was all a hallucination.”

“And the blood?” Stiles immediately wishes he could staple his lips shut. “I mean, never mind, it was totally a hallucination, obviously you didn’t kill anyone—“

“It was rabbit blood. That’s what the Argents told me. So I killed a rabbit. Probably with my bare hands.” She gives Stiles a wide-eyed stare, and he can see that she’s starting to tear up. 

“Hey, you know what, that rabbit probably had it coming. Rabbits can be real dicks.” That makes her laugh. Just a little bit, but when Stiles goes in for a cautious hug, she lets him. She doesn’t hug him back, but she does put her forehead on his shoulder.

“I don’t think that I’m crazy,” she says, her voice a whisper against the cotton of Stiles’ t-shirt. “I think that this is something else. Something worse.”

Stiles closes his eyes. His emotions are doing a crazy see-saw between going batshit about whatever the hell scary thing is happening to Lydia, and being delighted that she’s letting Stiles hold her. “I don’t think you’re crazy, either. But it’s gonna be okay. You’ll be okay.”

Lydia doesn’t reply. She moves back and away from Stiles after another couple of moments. “Thanks for saying that, even if you have no way of knowing if it’s true.” She sniffs and wipes at her eyes, then gives him a tight smile. “You should go now. I have homework.”

Stiles opens his mouth, searching for some words to convey the extent to which he is so very freaking there for her for any little thing she needs. But he’s got nothing. “—okay. Okay, I’ll let you do that, then. I’ll just go. But I—if you remember anything else, or if you just want to talk or kill rabbits together or something, I’m your guy.” 

He wants to pull an Edward Norton and punch himself viciously in the face for that, but Lydia just laughs. “Good to know. I’ll see you around, then.”

Stiles is out the door when Lydia calls his name. He turns around.

“Don’t tell anyone. No one, okay? Please.” 

“Not a living soul.”

“Promise.” 

There’s a gleam in Lydia’s eyes that makes him hesitate, just for a second. “Cross my heart and hope to die,” he says, trying to keep his voice light to hide the fact that he’s getting goose bumps.

* * *

Stiles knows that he’s heard of a McKinley lately, and definitely in the context of something creepy. He thinks about going over to Derek’s sad new flophouse to ask him if Harold McKinley means anything to him, but Derek might think that Stiles is coming over for some other, less mystery-solving and more kid-with-a-crush reason. No way would Stiles give him the satisfaction, and besides, he probably can’t mention the name without explaining any of the things that Lydia made him promise not to tell anyone. 

So here he is, sneaking around his dad’s desk while his dad is off trusting his son and protecting the good people of Beacon Hills. Stiles feels like a guilty scumbag, but a triumphant guilty scumbag when he uncovers the case that he’d heard his dad talk about a few days ago. 

Gale McKinley, nineteen years old, son of Harold McKinley and living alone in his deceased dad’s old house, which happens to be just a couple blocks away from the Argent residence. Reported missing the night of Lydia’s walkabout.

“Wonderful. This is—thanks, Lydia! Thanks for putting this on me,” Stiles says to the desk. He’d asked her to put it on him, of course. He’d reassured her that he could take anything she needed to tell him, promised her that her secrets were safe with him. And now she might have murdered this guy while being possessed by a werewolf or something else with claws, and the Argents must have told her that it was rabbit blood because they suspected her and were trying to misdirect, and this sucks on so many levels. 

The McKinley house is cordoned off by yellow crime scene tape, but it’s dark and there doesn’t seem to be anyone home. Stiles parks a block away and walks up to it, standing across the street and trying not to look conspicuous while he thinks about what the hell to do next. 

The house is on the corner of the street, which means that the backyard is accessible. And this is their only lead. Right. He tries hard not to think about the extent to which being the sheriff’s son won’t get him out of this as he approaches the back door of the house. 

The door is locked, but one of the back windows is smashed and hasn’t been boarded up yet. Stiles does his best to sweep the cut glass out of the way with the sleeve of his jacket and squirms his way in. Jesus, what are the chances that no one just saw him do that? This is the Argents’ neighborhood, which makes Stiles think that there’s probably a pretty active neighborhood watch group. Someone’s probably calling the cops on his ass right this very moment.

He makes a quick round of the upstairs level, and doesn’t find anything that seems like it might explain this guy’s involvement. Gale McKinley just seems like a normal, pretty boring guy. His bathroom is sort of disgusting, but that shouldn’t be a capitol offense. 

But the house has a basement, of course. Stiles feels dread pooling in his stomach as he heads downstairs, into a perfectly normal damp basement which manages to give Stiles the creeps even after switching on the lights. There’s a washer and dryer in the corner, along with a couple of mounds of laundry—clean or dirty, Stiles isn’t sure. There’s exercise equipment gathering dust. There’s piles of assorted bits and pieces that Stiles recognizes as objects that this guy probably never uses, but doesn’t want to throw out: camping equipment, soccer cleats, tennis rackets. Then there’s an assortment of cardboard boxes, four or five of them shoved together; Stiles can read 'Dad's stuff' scrawled on the one closest to him.

The Dad in question being Harold McKinley, of course. Stiles walks over as curiosity overcomes the strong sense that he shouldn't be here. The first box that he opens up is full of records, cassette tapes and CDs. Nothing useful. But the second one--in the second one, Stiles finds a threadbare basketball jersey with McKinley's name on it. He keeps digging, and uncovers a Beacon Hills High yearbook, class of 1978. He flips through it, but it's like looking for a needle in a haystack: McKinley must have been popular, because he's got signatures scrawled on almost every page, and Stiles doubts he has time to go through and analyze each and every one of the messages from this guy’s friends.

Then he finds a photo of McKinley's basketball team, with the names of each student written in the photo caption. It's yellowed, ancient, but Stiles can see that McKinley is grinning wide and has his arm thrown around the guy next to him, clearly his buddy. When Stiles glances down to see who's who, he feels the bottom of his stomach drop out, because the teenager in the photo is Peter Hale.

"Fuck," Stiles whispers. He can feel his mind struggling to put the pieces together, but just seeing that Peter Hale is connected somehow is terrifying enough that it distracts him, makes it hard for him to think. Fuck, fucking fuckety fuck--

"What are you doing here?"

"Gah!" Stiles jumps and almost drops the photo. He manages to fumble it back into the box without breaking the glass and twists around to face Derek. "What am _I_ doing? What are _you_ doing here, Jesus Christ, you know this is a crime scene?"

Derek frowns at him. "I was watching the Argent house and smelled you. When I realized that you had broken into someone's house by yourself like an idiot, I figured that you might need some help. What were you looking at?"

Stiles glares and tries to hide the cardboard box with his body. "Nothing. You're very considerate and all, but I don't need your help, and two people in an abandoned house is probably more conspicuous than one, so it might be best if you left."

Derek gives him an incredulous look and walks up to him, craning his neck a little to look behind Stiles. "We're supposed to be working together now, remember?"

"And I am 100% down with that idea," Stiles says. He spreads his hands and gives Derek his best winning smile. "I thought I would check out this missing person lead since we have nothing else to go on, but it turns out to be a dead end. I was just getting ready to leave, since I don't want to be arrested for breaking and entering."

"You know that I can tell when you're lying, right?" Derek's face is pretty damn blank, but Stiles thinks he might be disappointed. "We need to be able to trust each other."

"Yeah, well." Stiles doesn't really have an answer to that. He's sorry that he's hurting Derek's feelings and all, but his reasons for keeping Lydia's secrets just jumped from gotta-have-integrity to gotta-keep-Lydia-from-getting-taken-out-by-ruthless-werewolves. 

Derek just stands there for a second, looking at Stiles like he wants to slap him with a glove and challenge him to a duel or something for insulting his honor. Then he rolls his eyes, reaches out and shoves Stiles out of the way like Stiles weighs approximately the same as a particle of dust. Then he holds Stiles at arms' length, humiliatingly, while he starts sorting through the contents of the box.

"Hey--" Stiles tries to twist out of Derek's grip on his shirt, but it's too late. Derek's holding the picture, his lips parted and his eyes comically wide.

"Stiles. Why are you digging around this guy's stuff? How is he connected to my uncle's body going missing? _What do you know?_ " 

Derek's voice sounds a whole lot more scared and emotional and a whole lot less menacing than Stiles expected. And his hand feels warm and steady against Stiles' chest, even if his grip is making Stiles' t-shirt dig into the underside of his pits in a painful way. 

And it's totally shitty, because the thing is, Stiles knows that Derek always tries to do the right thing. He's not an evil mastermind or a moustache-twirling villain, and Stiles is pretty sure that Derek would never, ever actually kill anyone without what constitutes--in Derek's mind--a good reason. Stiles doesn't want to keep making an enemy of him. Even if he weren't stupidly attractive and the first person Stiles had ever kissed, Stiles wouldn't want them to be enemies.

But he remembers Derek choosing to be the beta to Peter's Alpha, and then Peter mauling Lydia the very next night. And he sure as hell remembers watching Derek standing outside Scott's house, unmovable and calm as anything as he waited for an opportunity to murder Lydia on the basis of bad evidence. So he meets Derek's eyes and braces himself to become an alpha's punching bag.

"Just because you can tell when I'm lying doesn't mean you can make me tell you the truth," he says.

For a second, Derek looks like he's been slapped in the face. Then his eyes go red and he roars and yep, there it is, Stiles is getting shoved hard against the nearest wall, cracking the back of his head against an exposed piece of plumbing. "Ow, Jesus--"

"Is this a game to you?" Derek yells, all of his teeth out, and Stiles feels more afraid of him than he's been in--months, probably, but definitely at least weeks. "People are dying, you idiot! The man who lived here is dead, whoever did it cleaned up well enough to fool the police but I can still smell his blood and his guts! Do you want to be next, do you want your _friends_ to be next?"

The basement light glints off of Derek's teeth. Stiles' feet are dangling because Derek's lifted him off the floor--and Stiles is pretty sure he didn't even do that on purpose. He looks inhuman and out of control and Stiles feels frozen and braindead with fear. 

But there’s always that infuriating part of himself that doesn’t seem to give a damn about self-preservation, and that part is pissed as hell. Stiles kicks out as viciously as he can, and his foot connects satisfyingly with Derek’s kneecap. Derek makes a sound that’s almost a yip and loosens his grip, allowing Stiles to get his feet on the floor and wrench himself away. 

“No, I want my friends alive, which is why I’m protecting them from you!” he yells. “Do you even see yourself right now? You’re not exactly the white knight in this situation!”

“Do you see _your_ self? You’re a human boy, too weak to ask for help in trying to take on forces he doesn’t understand—“

“Fuck you. Fuck you, okay, if I’m so weak then I must not have any information you want, right? So get the hell out.”

Derek snarl-roars at him, but then seems to deflate slightly. “Stiles, listen to reason. I’m trying to _help_ you—“

“And I kind of hate what happens when you try to help.” Stiles’ heart is still hammering in his chest, but he can feel the immediacy of his rage slowing down. He needs to think. He’s not going to get out of this through matching Derek’s testosterone level. He’s got to convince Derek to let him go, and then he’ll get to Lydia and get her somewhere safe and—and then who the hell knows, but Step A is definitely avoiding the part where Derek goes for Lydia’s throat because he wants to eliminate the threat. 

“Look, I don’t really know anything. What I _suspect_ is that you were dead-on about someone using the kanima to bring your uncle back, and this guy McKinley might have gotten killed for that purpose.”

Derek narrows his eyes, as if he realizes that Stiles has only managed to avoid lying through very careful word choice. “How did you know about David McKinley?”

“I heard my dad mention that he’d been reported missing, and I didn’t know the Peter Hale connection until I snooped around here.” Stiles steeples his fingers and tries to look detective-y. “What do you know about how the kanima’s used for creepy zombie spells?”

Derek shakes his head. “I told you and Scott everything I know. And you’re protecting someone. One of your friends.” His eyes narrow again, but he doesn’t make any more violent moves toward Stiles.

Stiles rolls his eyes and tries to summon his very best acting skills. “Just Jackson. We already told you, you’re not allowed to kill him, much as a large part of me would like to let you.”

Derek is staring at Stiles like he can see the truth if he just looks hard enough. “It’s not Jackson. It’s the girl. Lydia.”

“I—“ Stiles opens and closes his mouth like a fish. “How did you know? I mean, she has nothing to do with this, fuck—“

Derek growls again, frustrated, and Stiles is really expecting to get slammed against the wall again and shaken until information falls out, but Derek just crosses his arms. “You already told me, your heart is promised to another. She’s the one you’re protecting” 

Stiles kind of can’t believe that Derek would bring up anything that either of them said during the makeout-sesh-that-didn’t-happen. From the look on his face, neither can Derek. “Uhhmm.”

Derek moves closer and touches Stiles’ shoulder, kind of gently like he’s decided to try the good cop routine now. “I don’t want to hurt her. If she’s at all involved with this, then she’s in danger, and I want to _help_ her.” 

Derek’s proximity is throwing a wrench into the extant tumult of Stiles’ emotions. He opens his mouth to say something, anything to throw Derek off track, but his brain is seriously letting him down on that front. Instead, he has a moment of thinking of what would James Bond do in this situation, and then he grabs Derek’s face in both hands and kisses him.

Derek makes a “mmph” sound against Stiles’ mouth, but doesn’t go anywhere. Stiles really, seriously cannot believe that he’s been dumb enough to pull this stunt twice now, but the crazier thing is that Derek goes for it, opening his mouth and getting his tongue _all_ up in Stiles’ tonsils. For several seconds, Stiles forgets about all of the reasons he’s pissed and freaked out and just clings, trying to get closer.

Then Derek breaks the kiss. “What is the _matter_ ” with you,” he says, and shakes Stiles not unlike a rag doll. “We don’t have time for this!”

“Not my fault I just can’t resist you,” Stiles says. The awful thing is that he’s only about 60% kidding, but Derek looks at him like he just made a bad joke about 9/11 or something.

“Why the hell do you keep doing this?” Derek asks through clenched teeth. “You don’t trust me, you don’t even like me.”

“Well, I do like your bone structure.” Stiles is so smooth when he’s saying exactly the wrong thing. Derek’s face darkens.

“Fine. I’ll find her and figure out how she’s involved by myself.”

“No! Look, it’s a delicate situation, and—“ Stiles grabs the front of Derek’s jacket, keeping him close. “I just need you to trust me on this.”

“When you blatantly don’t trust me, really?” Derek snarls at him and shoves Stiles’ hands away. He turns his back and heads for the stairs, and Stiles panics. He grabs Derek’s shoulder and yanks him back around, not sure if he’s going to try fighting or begging or maybe offering his nubile body in exchange for cooperation. 

But Derek doesn’t let him get that far: he whips around, grabs Stiles’ forearms, and pushes him down and away. Stiles stumbles and falls to the floor, his elbows and ass taking the fall. Before he can stand, Derek is right there, pinning him down and kissing him again, his breath hot and his teeth (human now, thankfully) digging into Stiles’ bottom lip.

“You don’t understand what you’re playing with,” Derek says, and Stiles has no idea if he’s referring to this crap with his uncle or werewolf makeouts. 

“I’m not playing with anything. Promise.” Derek fixes him with a crazy intense stare, and Stiles fights the urge to squirm under it. “Look, can we just—“ He leans up, and catches Derek’s mouth briefly with his own before Derek pulls away. 

“No! I haven’t changed my mind about that,” he says, looking scandalized.

“Really? Because something gave me the impression that you had,” Stiles says waspishly. “You can’t shurg mrgmff—“ 

The rest of his sentence is muffled by Derek’s palm, because he’s suddenly got his hand clamped over Stiles’ mouth, the jerk. Stiles feels annoyance flare up and bites down hard on one of Derek’s fingers. Derek frees Stiles’ mouth with a hiss and a furious look, and Stiles is about to say something bitchy when he realizes that Derek is pointing emphatically up and then holding his finger to his lips.

And now Stiles can hear it, too. Someone is upstairs. 

Derek stands in a fluid motion, his eyes on the stairs. Stiles stays right where he is, because unlike Derek, he’s pretty sure he’s not stealthy enough to move even a little bit without making any noise. Stiles really hopes that Derek isn’t so mad at him that he won’t protect Stiles from whatever’s suddenly sharing the house with them.

The kanima moves faster than Stiles has ever seen it go, slithering down into the room and then launching itself at Derek with a screech. Derek barely manages to dodge it, and Stiles scrambles the hell away from both of them as fast as he can. He grabs his phone and calls Scott, praying that he actually picks up.

Derek is all wolfed out and going on the offensive, his claws ripping into the kanima’s stomach. The kanima makes an awful squealing noise and for a second Stiles feels hopeful, because Derek probably wounded it where it’s most vulnerable. But then the kanima’s tail lashes out and throws Derek so hard that his body dents the wall, which is _concrete._

Stiles tries to make a run for it, his cell phone forgotten, but he feels a claw scratch the back of his neck before he gets two feet, and then something hits his head, and everything goes dark.

* * *

Stiles wakes up to the smell of something rotten burning. He chokes and coughs and realizes pretty fast that he’s still paralyzed from the neck down. He’s not sure if it’s still the same venom in his veins (in which case he’s been out less than two hours, probably), or if they’ve dosed him again. His head is throbbing. 

When he opens his eyes, it takes a couple seconds for his vision to de-blur. He’s still in the McKinley’s basement; someone has propped him up against the wall, so that he’s not just lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling like a paralyzed lump. A few feet in front of him, Lydia is lying on her side in a fetal position, maybe unconscious, maybe paralyzed or worse. Stiles stifles the urge to call out to her, because Gerard Argent is right behind her, and maybe he hasn’t realized that Stiles is awake yet, since he’s busy carefully slitting the kanima’s throat. 

Wait—no, not its throat. There’s no blood, and Gerard actually seems to be cutting at a place closer to where the thing’s ear might be. The kanima is craning its neck to give him better access, and Gerard holds a bowl under the cut, collecting the venom that pours out from the gland. 

Allison and Derek are both sitting against the wall to Stiles’ left, both unconscious, both with tied wrists. There’s dried blood on Allison’s forehead, and Derek looks like someone beat him to within an inch of his life. Which actually gives Stiles a reason to be hopeful, since it means that not enough time has passed down here for his wounds to heal. Unless Grandpop has a secret way to block werewolf healing abilities, but if he was gonna do that, then why not just kill Derek?

For that matter, if you’re a rogue werewolf hunter who’s using a teenaged girl as a catalyst to bring a crazy psycho killer back from the dead, why not kill everyone in this room. Stiles suspects that he’s looking for too much logic here.

Stiles tries to take stock of every creepy detail that he can. Next to Lydia, there’s a small stone altar with someone’s flaming head perched on it--Stiles assumes that’s where the awful stench is coming from. There’s also a salad bowl filled with blood. 

Gerard gives the kanima’s head a pat before standing, having apparently gotten all the venom he needs. He looks right at Stiles and smiles a kindly grandpa smile. “I see someone’s awake. How’s your head?”

“Is that Gale McKinley’s blood?”

“Very good. You’re quick.” As he talks, Gerard takes his mini-bowl of kanima venom and pours it into the larger bowl of blood, stirring them together along with some kind of magic powder he takes out of his jacket pocket. Yummy. “I would have expected Hale to go for his nephew, or one of your friends perhaps, for the ritual revenge kill. But I suppose that if I’m using Peter’s teenaged spirit, I also get whatever grudges he had at that age.” 

“Right, yeah, makes perfect sense.” It’s a pretty strange sensation, to be straining with all his might to move a muscle without getting any results. Stiles can feel himself breaking out into a sweat. 

“Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Gerard politely inclines his head in Stiles’ direction and picks up the most foul bowl of cake batter on the planet, chanting softly in a language that Stiles doesn’t recognize. 

And then of course there’s the walking and the chanting, and the drizzling of the blood/venom mixture on the floor in a big circle while chanting, and Stiles has seen this ritual on TV like a thousand times. Boring and unoriginal, although Stiles has to award points for the dismembered head burning in the background. He asks as many annoying questions as he can think of, trying to goad Gerard into interrupting his own spell, but no dice. Gerard is super professional and his chanting rhythm never even stutters.

Stiles switches his focus to waking up his co-prisoners. “Hey, hey guys, evil spell going on here.” He doesn’t really try to be quiet, considering that they’re all in one big basement and no one can move without being seen or heard by all of them. 

Allison’s eyelids flutter open, and Derek groans. He’s got super smell, how the hell has the disgusting scent of burning human flesh not woken him up already? Fuck—just how bad of a number did the kanima do on him during that fight? 

The fight, Stiles remembers, that Derek got into because Stiles was arguing with him. No: because Stiles was _stalling_ him, and pretty deliberately, too. That’s a nice, comforting thought. If they manage to get out of this alive, Stiles might have to suck it up and apologize to Derek for not trusting him, because right now he sort of feels like he’s drowning in a pool of guilt and self-loathing.

“Oh my God,” Allison says, as she realizes where she is, pushing herself back against the wall. Stiles notices that she apparently isn’t paralyzed, just tied up, which doesn’t seem quite fair. “Gerard? Gerard, what are you...” 

Her voice trails off as she stares at the horror show in front of her. “Oh my God, Lydia.”

“Yeah, it’s bad,” Stiles says, his jaw clenching against the hard lump of fear and panic that wants to take over at the mention of Lydia’s name. “Can you, like, nudge him or something to wake him up?” He jerks his chin in the direction of Derek, and Allison elbows him until Derek’s eyes finally open. 

“Wha—“ he glances around him, seems to realize he can’t move, and roars, all sharp teeth and red eyes. He’d maybe be the most intimidating sight in the room, if it weren’t for the poisonous lizard monster and the zombie ritual that Lydia’s stuck in the middle of. As it is, he comes in a very distant third.

Gerard shoots Derek a pitying look, and drizzles out just a little bit more of his magic potion, completing what looks like a giant spiral on the ground, with Lydia at its center. And then he dumps the rest of the bowl’s contents over Lydia’s body, the liquid hissing and bubbling as it hits her skin. Lydia screams and rolls on her back, her whole body arching and convulsing in pain. 

“Lydia!” Allison shouts, and Stiles yells, “No, you bastard, what the fuck are you doing—“ or he thinks that that’s maybe what he yells, he can barely hear himself because Lydia is _shrieking_ \--

“Can both of you quiet down please? That’s not her screaming.” Gerard looks between Stiles and Allison like they’re students called into his office, annoyed and impatient. He sets the bowl gingerly down on the altar. “She’s not even in there anymore. Peter Hale’s the one feeling the pain. It’ll draw him out.” 

“No,” Derek says, his voice a gasp.

“What are you talking about? You can’t do this,” Allison says, getting to her feet and starting to move forward, but the kanima growls, and she stops.

Stiles doesn’t say anything. He’s stuck on the words, _she’s not even in there anymore._

Lydia’s screams turn to whimpers, and then stop. Stiles watches as she sits up slowly, blood matted in her hair and dripping down her face. There’s still steam coming off of her body, and she has pink, burned blotches on her face, neck, and arms. 

“Was that really necessary?” Lydia asks, a small frown on her face, and Stiles feels like he’s been thrown into ice water, because she’s not talking with her own voice. It’s a boy’s voice.

Mostly. It’s sort of—it’s like there’s echoes of Lydia’s voice there, which is interesting.

Gerard shrugs. “You know that it was. Do you—“ But his voice is cut off at the sound of a crash and a wolf howl—several howls, from several wolves—from upstairs. 

Lydia stands up, cracking her neck. “That sounds like a pack. A young one, too. Yours?” She smiles at Derek, who just stares. He looks human again, and about as scared and horrified as Stiles feels. 

“Go on,” Gerard says, and the kanima disappears up the stairs, giving its own answering scream to the wolves. He turns to Lydia, looking like a grumpy old man who’s about to yell at someone to get off his lawn. “I should make sure that he doesn’t kill any of them. Take this.” He pulls a pistol out of some hidden hunter compartment in his jacket, and hands it to Lydia. 

As he heads to the stairs, he pauses as he passes Allison. “I wish that you’d made a different choice,” he says.

Allison lifts her chin, staring back at him like she’s fantasizing about dismemberment. “I didn’t. You can go screw yourself.”

Gerard sighs, and then looks like he’s thought of something funny. “Here,” he says, and pulls an arrow out from God-knows-where, tossing it at Allison’s feet. “See how long it takes you.” 

“Go to hell!” Allison yells after him, but he’s already climbing the stairs. 

Stiles can hear noises that sound like furniture breaking and animals getting wounded. Wonderful. And Lydia—not Lydia, Peter Hale—is looking at each of them like she’s trying to decide whose innards to play with first.

“Why don’t you want the betas getting killed?” Stiles asks, hoping to distract Peter from murder.

“I need a pack, don’t I?” Peter smiles and holds up one of Lydia’s hands, which is looking distinctly claw-like. “Once this body fully transitions, of course. And once I’ve killed my nephew and become the alpha again.”

“They won’t follow you,” Derek says, looking as menacing as he possibly can while sitting limply against a wall. Next to him, Allison slides to the ground, hiding her face in her knees. 

“Oh, I don’t know about that. Once I’ve bitten Scott’s girlfriend and his best friend, he’ll want to be with them, even if it means forgiving me for killing you.” 

“Whoa, hey, who’s biting what now?” Stiles says as Derek snarls, “It won’t work!”

Peter grins, Lydia’s teeth flashing white in the yellowish basement gloom. “How do you know?” she says to Derek, like Stiles hasn’t even opened his mouth or asked a legitimate and important question. “You barely know him, and he certainly doesn’t know you. He doesn’t even _like_ you. I don’t think it’ll take him any time at all to get over it.”

“I know Scott pretty well, and I can’t think of anyone less likely to just forget a murder, not even for me or Allison,” Stiles says. Peter turns to look at him, and Stiles keeps talking, because he has no idea what the fuck else to do here. “Why is Gerard so hell-bent on bringing you back, anyway? You guys are supposed to hate each other.”

“Gerard? He just wants power. He helped me lure Laura back to Beacon Hills, in return for my partnership when I became an alpha. I don’t think he planned on having to bring me back from the dead, but my mark on the girl tied my spirit to this world, and then Gerard got his hands on the kanima.” Peter crouches down until he’s eye-to-eye with Stiles, and even now, Stiles can’t help but notice how pretty Lydia is. “It all worked out just beautifully.”

There’s a ripping sound, and then Derek is on his feet, already moving as his claws and teeth come out. Stiles barely has time to be impressed that Derek hid the fact that he could move again before there’s a bang and Derek fall to the ground with a howl, two bullets in his chest. 

“Derek, oh my God,” Stiles says, or starts to say, before Peter turns back around and backhands him, his claws raking across Stiles’ jaw. 

It’s really fucking painful and Stiles’ ears are ringing. Lydia—or her body—is getting stronger. Transforming. 

And Derek has just been shot. He might be dead. 

Stiles shudders and it’s a struggle to bring himself to open his eyes. He doesn’t want to—he wants to be unconscious again, and pretend that none of this is happening. He can see Peter standing over Derek’s prone body, looking pleased. “Wolfsbane bullets,” she says, tossing the gun to the ground.

“Yeah, I kinda figured.” Stiles forces himself to look at Derek, who’s completely still and has got to be spilling pints and pints of blood on the floor. He can’t tell if Peter managed to shoot Derek’s heart, but with the wolfsbane, it might not matter. That stuff had seemed pretty damn deadly when it was just a shot in Derek’s arm, rather than two holes ripping up his internal organs. 

“Jesus,” Allison whispers, hunching further into herself. Stiles wants to beg her to do something, anything, considering that she’s the only good guy in the room who’s not paralyzed or dying. But it’s not like it would help their situation if she got herself shot, too. 

Peter shudders, and throws his head back as the features on Lydia’s face go all blurry for a second, which has got to be one of the creepiest things Stiles has ever seen. “It’s almost finished,” Peter says, and there it is again, a faint echo of Lydia’s voice. “Soon her body will turn completely into my own, and when my nephew dies I’ll have all his power back.”

Stiles really wishes that he could move his hand to wipe at the blood that’s trickling down his neck. “God, Lydia, do you really want to die and leave us with a supervillain this lame? Because I personally feel that you could do way better.” 

And he only said it because he’s run out of ideas, but something flickers in Lydia’s eyes for a second. Just for a second, and then Peter kicks him in the face, which hurts like hell but Stiles figures that it means he should keep going. 

“Lydia, you don’t wanna die yet! What about—what about Jackson, you guys just barely broke up and you haven’t made him regret it yet! Haven’t you heard that living well is the best revenge?” 

Stiles spits out blood from where his teeth sliced up the inside of his cheek and braces for another kick, but Peter’s not moving. He’s just standing there, his nostrils flaring, like maybe he’s got a little internal struggle going on.

“Lydia! Lydia, if you let him kill you, you’ll never win the Field’s Medal. You’ll never even go to college!” 

“Shut up!” Peter yells at him, as if he doesn’t know that telling the plucky hero to be quiet when they’re in the middle of a motivating speech never works. He takes a menacing step towards Stiles, but then stops, his whole body rigid. 

“You want to live, Lydia,” Stiles says. “I may not know you as well as I’d like to, but I know that you’re not gonna give up on life this easily. I know that you’re in there, and I know you’ve gotta be pissed, and I know that you’re not gonna let this fucker just erase—“ 

Peter has his throat in a vice-like grip, squeezing until Stiles starts to see spots. And then his hands are gone, and Stiles gasps for air while Peter falls forward on his hands and knees. He yells with a voice that’s neither his nor Lydia’s, and then Lydia—it’s unquestionably her—says “Get away from me.”

“Yes, okay, I will definitely get away, why don’t you swim up to the surface to yell at me some more?” But Lydia is scrambling away from Stiles now, back towards the altar, where Peter Hale’s skull is still burning merrily away. Stiles calls out her name, but it’s like she can’t hear him anymore. 

“Get _away!_ ” she screams, and convulses, and Stiles watches dumbstruck as black smoke flows from her body, making a sickening roaring sound. It collects itself in front of her, materializing in the shape of a person, becoming a teenage boy. The boy that Stiles saw in the photo of the basketball team.

The boy’s—Peter’s--skin is almost, but not quite, transparent. He looks down at his hands in surprise, and then looks back at Lydia. He steps toward her, like he’s just going to possess her again, oh shit—Stiles automatically tries to move and finds, to his surprise, that his right wrist jerks—

Peter cries out as Allison plunges her arrow into his shoulder. Both she and Peter look surprised to find that he’s actually corporeal. Allison’s eyes widen and she stumbles back as Peter turns toward her, but then Lydia gets to her feet with a broken sob, grabs the ceramic bowl from the altar, and smashes it over Peter’s head. He drops like a ton of bricks.

“Holy God,” Stiles says. 

Lydia’s hands drop to her sides and she sways for a second, staring down. Allison puts a hand on her shoulder, like she wants to comfort her even though they both look like they’re half a second away from freaking out completely. 

Thumps and roars from the fight upstairs carry down to them. “Scott,” Allison says, looking up. “And my grandpa—I’ve got to—can you--?” 

Stiles waves a hand, pleased to see that he can move his arms now. “Yeah, we’ve got things down here, go.” Allison squeezes Lydia’s shoulder and shoots Derek’s prone body a guilty look, then runs for the stairs. 

“Is he—did I kill him?” Lydia says, looking at Derek with wide eyes. 

“I don’t—I hope not,” Stiles says, trying very hard not to think about the possibility that she did. He gives himself an ungainly push off the wall, flops over onto his stomach, then manages to use his elbows to drag himself over to Derek. “Lydia, the gun, I need the gun.”

She grabs it and kneels next to them. There’s one bullet in Derek’s chest, and another one in his stomach, and when Lydia yanks his shirt up, there’s a whole awful spiderweb of black veins spreading rapidly out from both of the wounds. 

“What the hell,” Lydia says, and Stiles grabs the gun and moves to get the bullets out, but his fingers are still clumsy and mostly numb and he just ends up dropping the gun on Derek’s stomach. 

“Oh geez. Lydia, I need you to get two bullets out of this thing, and then—shit, I don’t suppose you know how to take a bullet apart? We need the gunpowder.” Stiles looks despairingly at Derek’s face, but he looks about ten times worse than he did when he was begging Stiles to cut off his arm, and Stiles doubts that punching him is going to wake him up this time.

“Oh my God, seriously? Okay—okay, pliers, maybe there are pliers around here,” Lydia says, getting up and looking around. “You’re a man, where in the basement would you put your toolbox?”

“I don’t know, look for a particularly manly corner or something.” Stiles really hates that his legs are the last part of him to be non-paralyzed. He hates that he just has to lie here, staring down at Derek’s sucking chest wounds and thinking about what Derek had said the last time this happened: when the poison reaches his heart, he’ll die. How close is the bullet in his chest to his heart? Stiles wishes that he knew more about anatomy.

“Found them!” Lydia rushes back, pliers in hand. “Now I just have to—“ She takes one of the bullets and gets to work, squeezing the pliers at the tip and frowning in concentration.

“Oh Jesus, be careful,” Stiles says, his stomach in knots. But then there’s a popping sound and the bullet comes apart perfectly. “Have I mentioned that you are brilliant and amazing and perfect?” 

A ghost of a smile appears on Lydia’s face, then disappears just as quickly. “Shut up. Now what?” She reminds him of Derek, sometimes, what with the always telling Stiles to shut up and glaring at him, and Stiles maybe has a type.

“Now—um, we set it on fire?” Stiles glances at the gross flickering skull on the altar and shudders. Does Derek carry a lighter on him at all times, or just for special occasions? “Derek might have—“ He roots around in Derek’s front pocket, and yes, thank fuck, there’s a lighter. 

And Stiles can now move himself enough to get up on his knees. “Here, you pop the other bullet, I’ll do this,” he says. He takes the open bullet from Lydia, pours the contents out on the concrete floor, and lights it up. It flares up fast and then stops, and it kind of burns Stiles’ fingers when he sweeps it back into the palm of his hand.

“Okay, this is gonna be gross,” Stiles tells himself. Then he goes for it, pressing the powder into the hole nearest Derek’s heart. Derek’s body jerks and he makes an awful sound, and Stiles flinches, but continues grinding the powder into the wound like he’d seen Derek do the first time. Which means that he’s getting Derek’s blood all over his fingers and it’s so gross and traumatizing, but Stiles really can’t wimp out now. He holds his fingers over the wound until he can see it start to close.

“The other one, I need the other one,” Stiles says, but Lydia is way ahead of him, already pressing the second batch of gunpowder into the hole above Derek’s bellybutton. The scary black veins all over Derek’s chest begin to look less veiny, and Derek wakes up, his body arching and his head flying back as he yells and groans in pain. 

Then Derek slumps back on the floor, panting and staring up at the ceiling. Lydia takes her hand off his stomach and glances back at the gun, her lips pressed together in a thin white line. “Two bullets left?”

“What? Yeah,” Stiles says, not really looking away from Derek’s face. Lydia picks up the gun and stands, walking away from them.

“Are you okay?” Stiles asks Derek, and his voice sounds small and young to his own ears. 

Derek looks at him like he’s just registered Stiles’ presence. He doesn’t answer, just grabs Stiles’ hand from where it’s resting on Derek’s ribs. He kisses Stiles’ fingertips and then just holds Stiles’ fingers against his cheek, squeezing hard enough that it kind of hurts. Derek’s eyes are closed and his mouth is open and Stiles feels like he should say something to break the tension, maybe ‘You’re welcome,’ but instead he just stares. 

After a moment, Derek opens his eyes and lets go of Stiles’ hand, looking over Stiles’ shoulder. “What’s she doing?”

Stiles twists around and sees Lydia standing over Peter Hale’s body. Stiles opens his mouth to say something, he’s not sure what, and then she crouches down, holds the muzzle of the gun to Peter’s temple, and shoots twice.

So now Stiles can cross “see a guy get shot in the head” off his bucket list. There are bits of skull and brain matter and blood, plenty of blood, and he doesn’t have a direct view of the side of Peter’s head but he can sort of see the edges of the concavity where his face used to be. How can there be so much bone and brain matter, Stiles saw this body form itself from magic smoke or something only like five minutes ago, how can it—

Stiles feels his stomach roll, and closes his eyes and grits his teeth, fighting the urge to hurl. That wasn’t even a real person. It was someone who actually died months ago, and the only reason he even had brains to blow out is because he was totally evil and possessing Lydia, and that should make it easier to see pieces of his skull splattered against Gale McKinley’s tennis rackets and sleeping bags. It should.

He opens his eyes. Lydia sits down, staring at the body like she’s not seeing it at all and letting the gun slip from her fingers. Stiles realizes dimly that Derek’s still holding his hand. 

From upstairs, there’s a crash and the sound of Allison screaming. Stiles jolts and then stands, stumbling a little, but his legs hold. “Um, I should,“ he says, with no idea how to finish that thought, but Scott and the rest of the pack are upstairs fighting the asshole who masterminded all of this, and he’s got to help, even if he feels like he’s running on less-than-empty. 

He grabs the empty gun where Lydia left it, and doesn’t let himself look back at Derek before going for the stairs, taking them two at a time, running from the kitchen to the living room and skidding to a stop. Erica and Isaac are unconscious on the floor; Boyd’s nowhere to be seen, but there’s a hole in the living room window large enough for a person to be thrown through. Scott is lying on the floor with Allison next to him, her foot held out at a painful-looking angle. The kanima is crouched on top of Scott, pinning him, its mouth open like it’s going in for the kill. 

Gerard is observing from a few feet away, his hands in his pockets. He glances up at Stiles, then stops moving when he sees the gun pointed at him.

“Call him off,” Stiles says, trying to sound more commanding than he feels. “Make him turn back into Jackson, or I’ll kill you.”

Gerard only looks surprised for half a second. Then he cracks a smile. “Son, you should put that thing down before you hurt yourself.” He puts his hands in the air, walking slowly toward Stiles. “You’re shaking so bad, I doubt you could hit me—“

“My dad is the sheriff, do you really think I don’t know how to handle a gun?” Stiles cocks it and moves forward until the barrel is only a foot away from Gerard’s chest. Maybe if Gerard calls his bluff, he can at least try to pistol-whip him or something. “Turn him back.” 

Gerard stills, studying Stiles’ face. He must be at least a little intimidated by what he sees, because he sighs, and waves a hand. The kanima shivers and then there’s Jackson, falling down on top of Scott, unconscious and naked. 

Stiles barely has any time to feel relieved before Gerard takes a step away from him and raises both of his hands higher, chanting while something orange glows between his fingers. 

“Oh, crap—“ Stiles says, stumbling backwards as the chanting gets louder, and Gerard has a _fireball_ in his hands—

Derek steps into view, grabbing Gerard and slamming his head into the wall. Gerard falls to the ground, out like a light. Derek sniffs and cracks his neck.

“You know, you kind of remind me of Wolverine sometimes,” Stiles says. “It’s the neck-cracking, I think. And the claws.”

Derek gives him a look that clearly states that Stiles shouldn’t be making comic book references when the only appropriate reaction is grim silence (according to Derek). Stiles just shrugs, and across the room Scott groans as he rolls Jackson off of him. 

Stiles knows that it’s probably wrong to notice the way Jackson’s penis flops around when Jackson is also covered in werewolf blood, but he can’t help where his mind goes. 

“What the hell just happened?” Scott says, his features becoming more human and less wolfy. “Gerard said something about Peter Hale?”

“It’s taken care of,” Derek says. His face is expressionless but his voice sounds ten seconds away from a nervous breakdown. 

They go back downstairs, Scott supporting Allison, who apparently sprained her ankle. Lydia is sitting right where Stiles left her, still staring at Peter Hale’s corpse—except, the corpse appears to be... disintegrating? Kind of sinking into the floor, along with all the bits of brain and skull that are scattered behind it, and Stiles decides that he hates magic. Even if this will make the clean-up easier.

“Lydia,” he says, as they approach, and then all stop about three feet away from her. “Are you...?”

“I’m okay,” she says, without looking away from the body. Her eyes are wide and wet-looking, but she’s not crying. “I’m in shock, not a fugue state.”

“Right. Shock, right.” Stiles looks at Scott, at Allison and Derek, but none of them look like they have any idea what to say, either. Stiles feels all of the awful events of tonight congealing in his stomach to form one sickening truth, which is that he failed to save Lydia from any of this, and she’s not okay. There’s no way that she’s okay.

“I don’t want to go to a hospital,” Lydia continues. “And I don’t want to go back to my house. That’s where he first came to me.” 

Stiles and Scott trade looks. Allison’s house is obviously out, and as Lydia is covered in burns from when Gerard poured boiling blood on her, there is no way that Mrs. McCall won’t drag her to a hospital as soon as she sets eyes on her. And even though Stiles wants, more than anything, to take Lydia home with him and do anything for her that he possibly can, he’s pretty sure that his dad will have the same reaction.

He opens his mouth to suggest that maybe he can sneak Lydia in through his bedroom window or something, but Derek speaks first. 

“You can come home with me. I have a spare bed and I can help you take care of those burns.” 

Lydia nods, then stands, sniffs and wipes at her eyes. She smiles at Derek, the ghost of the most popular girl in school visible in the corners of her mouth. “Thank you.”

She walks past them to go up the stairs and Derek follows her, his hand on her back between her shoulder blades. Stiles only catches his eye for a second, but he hopes that Derek’s able to read in Stiles’ eyes or his heartbeat or something that right at this moment, Stiles thinks that Derek is the most awesome guy on the planet.

* * *

After spending two hours composing it to get the right wording, Stiles sends a text to Lydia that says, _Hey, I’m really concerned about you and want to be there for you. But I also figured that you might want some space right now, so I won’t bother you if you don’t want me to. I just didn’t want you to think that I was staying away from you because I didn’t care. Just say the word and I will bring you soup and cookies and be your slave for the day._

Lydia texts him back, _thanks but space sounds good._ Which is neither unexpected nor unreasonable, but it means that Stiles can’t focus on taking care of someone else instead of worrying about his own shit, which sucks. 

It’s great that they were able to stop Gerard in the end, that Lydia was able to kick Peter Hale out of her head, that Jackson’s no longer being used to kill people. It sucks for Allison that her grandfather turned out to be crazy and now the Argents have to deal with excommunicating him and somehow shutting down his magic powers, but overall, things have turned out much better than they could have. 

It’s just that Stiles feels worried about Lydia and guilty about Derek. And a little traumatized, between being held captive by a possessed person and shoving gunpowder in Derek’s wounds and seeing someone get shot in the head. But mostly he’s got everything that happened before the kanima attacked them in the basement playing in his mind, on repeat. He could have trusted Derek with what little information they had, and then they could have gotten out of that house before Gerard and Lydia showed up; he could have gone straight to Scott with the info that Lydia gave him, instead of trying to investigate the McKinley house on his own; hell, he could have just stuck to Lydia’s side like glue after she told him everything, and then maybe he’d have been able to help her when Gerard came to collect. 

He could have done just about anything and it would have been better than what actually went down, what with Stiles’ dickish actions and makeout attempts leading directly to Derek getting shot and almost dying. Every time Stiles thinks about it—which has been roughly five times per minute—he feels almost physically ill with guilt. He doesn’t think he’s ever going to forget the feeling of digging his thumb into a bloody hole in Derek’s chest, and he can’t think of that moment without simultaneously remembering that it was his fault. 

He’s also uncomfortably aware that there was a time—a time not even that long ago—when he would have told Scott that having Derek dead and out of the picture would make everyone’s lives easier. Plus, he’s flagrantly violating bro code by not telling Scott everything—from the makeouts to the guilt. It’s enough to make Stiles worry that he’s secretly total asshole, and just never realized it until now. 

He gives Lydia three days, and then heads over to her house. He brings a fresh batch of cookies, because he’s pretty sure that if he were resting in bed after an exhausting bout of being possessed by an asshole werewolf, he would want his friends to bring baked goods. 

It takes a minute for him to persuade Lydia’s mom to let him in to talk to her daughter. When Stiles explains himself by saying, “I know that she hasn’t been in class and I heard that she wasn’t feeling well and I just wanted to stop by to talk,” she gives him a look that reminds him of the way his dad’s been looking at him lately: she knows that something is up, but isn’t going to trust any answer he gives her. 

But she does let him in, directing him to leave the cookies on the kitchen counter before he goes upstairs to Lydia’s room. Stiles feels well aware that a few months ago, the mere fact of being in Lydia Martin’s house—let alone her bedroom—would be the most terrifying and exciting thing to happen to him all awake, or maybe even all year. He’s almost bummed, in a weird way, that it isn’t now.

“Hey. How are you doing?” Stiles says, sitting down in a sofa chair next to Lydia’s bed. 

Lydia shrugs, sitting up in bed. She’s in her pajamas, which Stiles thinks is adorable. “I’m okay. The doctors told me that the burns aren’t that bad, mostly second degree, and there shouldn’t be any scarring. And it feels good to not have anyone else inside my head. No more scary visions, or waking up with blood on my hands, or anything.” 

“I would imagine that that would be pleasant and refreshing, yes.” 

Lydia gives him a small smile. “Yeah. And your friend, Derek? He was nice to me.” She hesitates. “I may have freaked out a little, when I figured out that he was related to Peter. That he used to live in—that house.” 

“Yeah, the Hale house pretty much takes the cake for creepiest living accommodations this side of Transylvania,” Stiles says. Although judging from the haunted look in Lydia’s eyes, she knows its creepiness on a wholly different level than Stiles does.

“Right. But he explained that Peter was in a coma for six years, and then he killed Derek’s sister, and... they weren’t close, I guess. Stiles, how long have you known about werewolves?”

Stiles blows out a breath. “Well—you caught the fact that Scott’s a werewolf, right?” 

He tells her everything, starting from the beginning and going up till now. He only omits the part where, for a hot second, Derek was determined to kill her, because he figures she doesn’t need to know that about the guy whose guest bedroom she just slept in. 

He finishes with, “I know that this is a lot to take in, but please understand that we were only ever keeping secrets to try and keep you safe.”

“Of course. I understand. You only ever had my best interests at heart.” Lydia gives him a sugary-sweet smile. “If you or Scott or Allison or _any_ of you ever lie to me again, I’ll disembowel you.”

“Duly noted,” Stiles says, gulping. Lydia rolls her eyes and goes back to staring out her window, and Stiles wonders if this is an inappropriate time to ask her if she wants to go out to a movie sometime. He shifts in his seat, feeling super awkward, but before he can gather his wits to formulate a plan of attack, Lydia starts talking again.

“Stiles, I like you. You’re cute, you’re funny, and you’re obviously a decent guy. I think that we could be friends, really good friends, and I want that.” She looks back at Stiles, a stern look in her eyes. “But if we’re going to be friends, you need to stop your crush on me. Because, you and me? It’s never going to happen.”

Stiles blinks. He feels kind of like the floor has dropped out from beneath him. “Wow. That’s, uh. Pretty harsh.” 

“I’ve been seduced and possessed by an undead werewolf, _and_ I’ve just learned that werewolves are real, excuse me if I’m not big on tact right now.”

Stiles looks down at his hands. He feels deflated and weak and foolish in a way that he hasn’t felt, or at least not this badly, since right around junior high. He has to will himself to look her in the eye again. “Is it because you just broke up with Jackson, or because all this other stuff just went down? Because I can wait—“

“I don’t want you to wait. I want you to move on. Find yourself someone else, or don’t, I don’t care, just—abandon all hope for anything between us.” She stops, and her voice gets a little softer. “I wasn’t kidding about really wanting to be friends.”

It’s not like Stiles ever really, truly expected Lydia Martin to ever want to go out with him. If he’d ever thought he had half a chance, he would have asked her out a long time ago, instead of hanging around in the background, waiting for things between them to change on their own.

It sucks. It is its own brand of unique suckitude that has nothing to do with werewolves or lizards or anyone dying, which makes it both better and worse. Stiles rakes his fingers through his hair and tries to think about it rationally, tries to imagine being Lydia’s friend-- _just_ her friend, and never anything else. 

As thought experiments go, it’s definitely not an unpleasant one. In the long run, he’s pretty certain that he’ll feel better about being her friend than being the guy with the hopeless crush. Deep down, he always knew that he was going to have to let go of this eventually—and if Lydia’s asking him to, apparently that day is today.

“Okay,” he says, looking back at her and cracking as much of a smile as he can. “My hope is officially abandoned. But if we’re going to be friends, I’m going to expect you to solve all my problems for me. And you’re going to have to put up with a lot more dick and fart jokes. Consider yourself warned.”

“Fair enough.” Lydia grins and swings her legs to the side, putting her feet on the floor. “You said something about bringing cookies, didn’t you?”

They eat their cookies and milk in Lydia’s kitchen, and Stiles answers as many of her questions as he can. Mostly she wants to know more about Jackson’s transformation, which she seems to be taking as the weirdest part of all of this. (Stiles can’t argue with that, because, well, lizard.) She laughs herself silly when Stiles tells her how Jackson set up a camera in his bedroom to film himself that first month, but she also asks him if he knows how Jackson’s been doing since they broke Gerard’s control over him. Stiles tells her honestly that he has no idea, but that he doubts that the knowledge that he was used to kill a bunch of people will bother Jackson for long. Lydia doesn’t contradict him, but she does look kinda bummed out.

When Stiles leaves, it takes him until he’s driven a block away to realize that he’s not actually in such a terrible mood, considering. If Lydia were to run after him right now and tell him that she’s changed her mind and thinks they should get married after all, Stiles would say yes in a heartbeat and then spend a lot of time thanking various deities, but he really doesn’t hate the idea of only ever being Lydia’s friend. For years, his dad has been telling him that being so fixated on one person could be preventing him from noticing all the other options around him, and Stiles finally feels—not un-fixated, exactly, but he’s certainly experiencing a lessening of fixation. 

Once you’ve seen a girl eject an evil dead werewolf from their body through sheer force of will, then saved another werewolf’s life with her help, then watched as she shot a dude twice in the head—maybe you don’t need to be fixated anymore, because maybe that creates an actual, solid connection that can be trusted. 

Stiles thinks about going back to ask Lydia if she thinks that they have a lifelong bond now, but figures that might be pushing it. He’ll just ask her the next time they get together for milk and cookies, since they’re totally bros now.

“I’m growing as a person,” Stiles announces when he gets home for dinner. 

His dad raises a skeptical eyebrow. “I’ll believe that when I see it. You brought dinner?”

“Did you know that there’s a new healthy-hippie-organic fast food joint in town?” Stiles beams as he sets his bounty down on the table. “They do turkey wraps!”

“Lucky me.” His dad sighs, already digging through the plastic bags to get at his dinner. Stiles tries not to notice that the investigation currently spread out on the table is still about the unknown whereabouts of Gale McKinley. “How are you growing as a person?”

Stiles sits down across from him. “Lydia Martin and I had a long heart-to-heart, and we have decided to just be friends.” 

“Is that so.” His dad puts down his wrap to give Stiles a Look, full of parental concern. “And how do you feel about that?”

Stiles shrugs. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s probably for the best. I mean, despite the rejection, she seemed like she actually thinks I’m a pretty cool person now.”

“Well, that’s good.” His dad reaches across the table and squeezes Stiles’ hand. “But I’m sorry that she doesn’t want more than that. I know how you felt about her.”

Stiles looks down at their hands. This is actually something that he can talk to his dad about without lying, at least for the most part. “It does kind of suck, but I don’t know.” He waves his wrap around, making vague gestures. “Fish in the sea, and all that.”

“That’s a very healthy way to look at it. Good for you.” His dad squeezes his hand and lets go, and they eat their wraps in silence for a while. Stiles inhales his, and then squirms and fidgets and starts making a paper airplaine out of the wrap’s foil wrapper before finally blurting out,

“If I told you I was also considering male fish in the sea, would you believe me?”

His dad stops mid-chew to give him a deeply skeptical look, before swallowing and saying, “I don’t know. Depends on what you’re trying to get out of through telling me.”

Ouch, but Stiles definitely deserves that. “Nothing! Nothing, I promise. I’m—I’m actually kind of serious about this.” He can feel his cheeks getting red, which he hates. He’s been trying so hard not to think about Derek or kissing Derek or how deeply everything had sucked for those few minutes when he’d been afraid that Derek was dead or dying for sure. Now he’s thinking about all of this in front of his dad, which is both unfortunate and something he’s kind of grateful for at the same time.

His dad regards him for a second, then shrugs. “Okay. If you’re serious, then I would say that that’s great. Whatever makes you happy.”

“Well, awesome then. This has been anti-climactic.” 

That gets him a laugh, and then his dad shoos him away from the desk so that he can work on the investigation. Stiles texts Scott to hang out, with the caveat that they can only do so if they talk about anything _but_ all of the crazy shit that’s gone down; Scott replies _yes!!!!_

So Stiles heads over to Scott’s house, and they play Call of Duty and Scott listens to Stiles rant about things that are completely unimportant, and Stiles doesn’t comment on how Scott looks kind of sad and also hasn’t mentioned Allison once for this entire night, which is extremely unusual. 

When Scott is about to beat him for the third time in a row, Stiles blurts out, “So I think I like dudes in a sexual way,” and wins the game when Scott stares at him, startled. Stiles punches the air in triumph.

“You’re a _dick,_ ” Scott says, glaring. “Were you being serious or was that just a ploy?”

“Both,” Stiles says. Scott punches him in the arm. 

“Well, that’s cool. Wait, have you had gay sex yet? Like in the butt? How does it feel?”

“No, I haven’t, but when I do, you’ll be the first to know,” Stiles says, although the thought of anything going up his butt kind of makes his ass cheeks clench up in alarm. He claps Scott on the shoulder. “Promise.” 

And they go back to the game.

* * *

It’s almost midnight by the time Mrs. McCall kicks him out. Stiles sits in the driver’s seat of his jeep for a while, tapping his keys against the steering wheel and staring out at the road. Then he sighs and starts the car, turning the radio up loud and heading home. He gets two blocks away from his house before slapping the roof of his car, turning the radio off and pulling a U-turn to go to Derek’s place instead.

“Dammit,” he says to himself as he pulls up in front of Derek’s address. Because of course the abandoned house is even creepier at night, and what if Derek’s pack is here? Or what if Derek is alone, but eating a rabbit that he just killed in the woods or something? Or what if he doesn’t want anything to do with Stiles because of how Stiles didn’t trust him and then almost got him killed. 

As Stiles raises his hand to knock on the door, he hears Derek call out “Come in, Stiles” from inside, which is creepy. Can Derek already smell the apology on him? Maybe Stiles doesn’t even need to say anything. That would be nice.

He walks in to find Derek in what must have been the living room, back when this place was considered acceptable housing. He’s not skinning a rabbit, but he is sitting on a rickety-looking chair and mending a hole in his leather jacket.

Stiles stares.

“What do you want?” Derek sets the jacket and his needle and thread carefully down on the floor before looking up at Stiles.

“Um.” Stiles shakes his head, deciding that he’ll ask Derek about his sewing kit later. “Hi. I thought that maybe we could talk.”

“About what?” Derek stands up, his arms crossed over his chest. 

Stiles rocks forward on his toes and back, looking anywhere but at Derek’s face. “We-ell, I guess I feel like I should apologize.”

Derek is silent, giving him no help at all. Stiles groans. “You know, because of the whole... because we fought and I distracted you and then Gerard was able to get the drop on us and then you got shot. That whole thing.”

Derek grunts. “You saved my life. We’re even.” 

Stiles waits, but Derek doesn’t seem to have anything else to say. “Okay, but uh, I guess I just feel... I don’t know, not great about it? Even or not. I mean, I’ve still got a bruise on the back of my head from where you shoved me into the wall, and I said some pretty mean things about you, and don’t you feel like we should have it out or something? Oh, also, lest I forget, there’s the problem where we keep making out with each other, and if that’s going to continue happening then maybe you should buy me dinner first.” Stiles actually has to bite his fist to shut himself up, oh God, he should probably get out now while he still has some shreds of dignity left, but Derek glowers at him, and Stiles is having that perverse reaction where Derek glaring makes him want to stick around instead of get away, like a sane person would.

“It’s not going to continue happening, nothing you said was wrong, and I’m sorry I shoved you into a wall. There, we’ve ‘had it out.’”

“You can’t just—wait, what do you mean, nothing I said was wrong?” 

Derek holds his gaze. “You didn’t tell me whatever you knew about Lydia because you were afraid I would kill her. And I don’t blame you. It would have been a last resort, but--”

Just like that, Stiles forgets that he came here to make nice. “Are you fucking kidding me? After everything that happened, after you let her stay over at your _house_ , and you’d still kill her?”

“No! Not now I wouldn’t, not after she helped save my life, I consider her a friend.” Derek steps toward him, looking not so much angry as hardened and far away. “But before? When I only knew her as someone you went to school with? When her death could have protected the people I care about? I’m not going to lie and tell you that I would have spared her life, if doing so put Scott or the rest of my pack in danger.”

“That... that’s just beyond fucked up!” Stiles flails. “Are you even listening to yourself?”

For some reason, that makes Derek laugh. It’s not a nice sound. “Stiles, you’ve been perfectly willing to let me die in the past. And I’ve heard you suggest killing Jackson as a possible solution at times, too.” He takes another step towards Stiles and the laughter is gone. “So ask yourself how righteous your anger toward me really is. Ask yourself, if Lydia had been an innocent stranger instead of an innocent friend, would you still say that mercy was worth any harm to your friends or your family?”

It’s become a struggle to meet Derek’s eyes, to not run, because Stiles badly wants to get out of this conversation. “I’m not like you.”

“No.” Derek flashes him a grin—bares his teeth. “You’re smarter than me, as you like to say.”

Stiles meets Derek’s eyes for as long as he can before he has to break his gaze and look away. There’s a buzzing in his ears and he doesn’t want to think about whatever the truth might be. “I don’t want anyone to die, strangers included. I just—everything’s been so violent, ever since Scott got turned. My friends, my dad—I couldn’t handle it if anything happened to them, and if that means...” 

“It means making hard decisions. I understand. I wish—you shouldn’t have to think this way.” When Stiles looks back at Derek, his head is bowed and the hard edge in his voice is gone.

“I shouldn’t, but hey.” Stiles cracks a smile, tries to get back within spitting distance of a joke-y atmosphere. “Someone’s got to, and Scott’s way too much of a softie.” 

“But unlike Scott, you’re not a werewolf!” Derek looks up again, urgency in his eyes and hard lines of tension in his jaw. “It doesn’t have to be this way for you, you could leave it all behind, be a normal teenager again. Why don’t you?”

Stiles opens and shuts his mouth. “Honestly? I wouldn’t even know what to do with myself.”

Derek moves closer again, looming only a few inches away now. “You’re still human. You have a choice.”

It’s an odd time to think of his dad, but the image of his father with his badge on flashes in Stiles’ mind’s eye. Good old Sheriff Stilinski, who’d never choose the welfare of his friends over the public good, who Stiles wouldn’t have to lie to if he walked away and went back to being a normal teenager. “I know. I’ve already made it.”

Derek stares at him and then glances slightly downward, and Stiles realizes that Derek is looking at Stiles’ mouth. “It’s a bad choice,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Yeah, maybe I’m not as smart as I say I am,” Stiles says, and then Derek’s mouth is on his and Derek’s hands are pulling him in, crushing them together. Stiles gropes at Derek’s hair and his jacket and holds on. 

It’s different from any of the times they’ve kissed before. For one, Derek’s hands are all over Stiles’ ass and thighs, and he keeps moaning into Stiles’ mouth, and Stiles is sure that the noises he’s making in return are not nearly as sexy. And then Derek goes from kissing to mouthing at Stiles’ ear, his stubble rough against Stiles’ cheek and who knew that stubble could make Stiles’ dick jump like that? Stiles definitely didn’t know, but he does now, and his dick gets harder alarmingly fast as Derek drags his teeth down Stiles’ neck, his breath heavy against Stiles’ jugular. 

“It’s a—good thing you’re not a vampire—“ Stiles gasps out, because apparently he really _can’t_ ever shut up, not even now. He fully expects Derek to shut him down for that lame joke, but Derek just groans and grinds his hips hard against Stiles, making it clear that Stiles is not the only one here with a raging erection. 

“Bed. Now,” Derek says, because he’s a caveman. Not that Stiles disagrees, and he does his best to help Derek walk them both towards the bedroom, but he still stumbles a lot and almost trips at the end, his klutzy-ness saved only by Derek grabbing him by the arm and tossing him onto the bed. 

“Jesus, what are we, in a romance novel or something?” Stiles says, because seriously, he just got thrown onto a bed by tall, dark and handsome. 

“Shut up.” Derek sounds a whole lot more breathy and a whole lot less angry than he usually does when telling Stiles to shut up, and he’s stripping off his shirt like it’s his job. Stiles tries to remove his own clothing just as fast, but doesn’t really manage it because he’s still got his pants on by the time that Derek is down to just his underwear. And he doesn’t get a chance to remove his pants himself, because Derek is in bed and on top of him, covering Stiles’ body with his own and kissing him over and over and over.

“Oh God, oh fuck,” Stiles gasps when Derek sticks his hand down Stiles’ pants and squeezes his cock. Stiles’ cursing dissolves into meaningless noises as Derek strokes, and it’s wonderful and the best thing he’s ever experienced and it should never, ever stop--

But then it stops, and Stiles is about to object when he feels Derek’s hand tugging hard at his pants and there’s a loud ripping noise. 

“Dude,” Stiles says, both annoyed and a little bit awed. “Did you just rip my _jeans?_ ”

Derek ignores him. “Here, sit up,” he says, moving off of Stiles and tugging at his arms until he complies. “No, get up on your knees.” 

Stiles does so, and is about to open his mouth to complain about getting bossed around when Derek pulls Stiles’ dick out of his boxers and leans over, and all of Stiles’ words die on the way to his mouth because Derek is sucking his cock. 

He’s like, really going for it too, he’s got most of Stiles’ dick in his mouth in a heartbeat and Stiles can feel Derek’s tongue on the underside of his shaft. It’s all slippery and warm and wet, and when Stiles grabs Derek’s hair for support, Derek makes noises (the vibrations of which Stiles can _feel in his dick_ ) and grabs Stiles’ ass with both hands, his fingernails digging in. Stiles can’t help but worry a bit about what will happen if Derek’s fingernails turn into claws, because according to Scott that’s a risk during werewolf sex, but then Derek goes down so far that Stiles feels Derek’s nose brush up against his pubes, and any worry—any conscious thought, period—becomes a thing of the past. 

Derek’s mouth is slack enough that it’s easy for Stiles to thrust into it. The pleasure builds and builds and Stiles tries to warn Derek that he’s coming when he feels it start, but he only manages a few vowels before he’s lost in it, his fingers digging into Derek’s scalp and his hips pumping through it. 

Derek keeps him in his mouth until he starts to soften, only then pulling off and wiping a hand over his mouth. He must have swallowed; Derek Hale must have just swallowed Stiles’ semen. Jesus fucking Christ. 

Stiles stares at Derek for a couple of seconds before falling sideways down onto the mattress, breathing hard and maybe even seeing stars. “I can’t believe you just did that.” 

That would be the sound of Derek laughing at him, albeit softly. Stiles shuts his eyes again. He can feel his pulse slamming against his skin in his groin, at his wrists, at his temples. He comes dangerously close to falling asleep, but then he hears Derek make a low, gravelly sound, and opens his eyes to see Derek lying the opposite way from him on the bed, his feet at the end where the pillows are and his head near the edge. He’s propped himself up on the elbows and he’s got his cock in his hand, jerking himself off and staring up at the ceiling. 

“Oh c’mon, no, let me,” Stiles says, sitting up and grabbing Derek’s wrist. Derek gives him a wild-eyed look and for a second Stiles is afraid that he’s just going to bolt instead of say yes, but then he nods and moves his hand away. 

Stiles squirms around until he’s in a good position, kneeling between Derek’s legs. Derek’s cock is curved and dark, almost purple at the head, glistening with pre-come. Stiles is sort of surprised at just how much he wants to put it in his mouth.

“I’ve never done this before, so sorry if it’s bad,” he says, and leans down, but Derek stops him with a hand in his hair. 

“You don’t have to do this.” Stiles can hear in his voice how hard he’s trying to sound like a responsible adult, despite the fact that his briefs are caught at his knees and he’s looking at Stiles like a hungry dog. 

“Dude, chill, I really want to.” Stiles grins and then wraps his right hand loosely around the base of Derek’s cock, trying to remember what he’s seen people do in porn. He licks the tip and then fits his mouth around the head, remembering at the last second to keep his lips stretched over his teeth. It feels much bigger than he expected, like there’s no room for anything else, and he has to kind of stretch his jaw to make this work. 

But he likes it. He really likes it, actually, especially when he pushes his mouth down to suck in more, especially when he works up some spit and Derek’s dick becomes slick enough for him to easily slide his lips up and down. Derek breathes loud and ragged, undone in a way that Stiles has never heard before, and he keeps making these wrecked noises and almost-words that sound so intense, so private, that Stiles feels downright privileged that he gets to hear them—that he’s _responsible_ for them, he’s the one making Derek sound like that. 

Stiles wishes that someone had told him this about sex, had told him that so much of what’s great about it comes less from your own orgasm and more from the heady rush of making someone else feel this way. His mouth is stretched and full and busy in a way that makes his mind go completely blank, which is something he’s only ever previously experienced while running in terror from werewolves, and it’s freeing and makes him feel kind of like he’s invincible. 

He takes Derek in as far as he can, his lips pressing against his own fist. Derek is pushing himself in, shallowly fucking Stiles’ mouth with his hand on the back of Stiles’ neck. Stiles can feel it when Derek’s hips tense up, and he can feel the muscle contraction start at the base of Derek’s dick, he doesn’t need the warning that Derek garbles out. 

He lets Derek shoot into his mouth, but the bitter taste takes him by surprise, and he kind of fails at either spitting or swallowing and instead just chokes and splutters. So there’s, like, a third of Derek’s come in his mouth, a third on his chin, and a third on his knuckles. Derek’s fingers spazz out on Stiles’ neck, and then Derek lets go and falls back, his hips still jerking with the aftershocks. Stiles rolls off of him and onto his back, closing his eyes and letting his mind catch up to what his body has been doing. 

His jaw is distinctly sore. So there’s that. 

Stiles maybe drifts off, or maybe just lets his wind wander far away for a while; he’s not sure how many minutes have passed when he glances back at Derek. He’s still staring up at the ceiling, and his body is further down the bed than Stiles’ is, so that Derek’s head and shoulders are hanging off the edge of the mattress and, since he’s got one arm flung over his head, his knuckles are brushing the floor. Also, his dick is still out, soft and limp and smaller now against his hip.

“You look good right now,” Stiles blurts out, and cringes at himself. In an ideal universe, having sex with someone should make it just fine for you to tell them they’re attractive any time you want to, but this is Derek and Stiles isn’t actually sure if they’ve moved on from the constant-mutual-insults phase yet, sex or no sex.

But Derek doesn’t make fun of Stiles for ogling, he just looks at him and raises an eyebrow. The corner of his mouth twitches a little, too. And—

“You’re _glowing,_ ” Stiles says. The eyebrow raises itself higher. “Dude, you are! You’ve got the werewolf afterglow going on.”

“How is werewolf afterglow different from the other kind?” Derek hitches up his underwear, tucking his dick back in, and Stiles hurriedly does the same, because you don’t want to be the only one with your junk still out. 

“I don’t know, I just know it when I see it,” Stiles says. “And have you realized that you’re falling off the bed?” Because Derek definitely is, the weight of his head and stupidly massive shoulders working to slide the rest of his body off the edge of the mattress. Stiles helps it along by giving his shoulder a push, and he gets far too much enjoyment out of watching Derek slide upside down off the bed until his head hits the floor.

“Hey,” Derek says, sounding put out, and Stiles just laughs own at him because now he looks ridiculous. 

Derek shakes his head, as if to imply that Stiles is immature or something. Stiles is about to laugh at him some more, but then Derek gets out of the awkward position by clenching his abs, hoisting his legs up over his head and rolling over his shoulder, all in one swift, smooth motion so that he ends on his knees a couple feet away from the bed. His face is flushed when he lifts his head, and he’s looking at Stiles like he wants him to be impressed. 

Stiles props his chin on his hand. “I could do that if I wanted. I just choose not to.” 

Derek grins at him, a real and open smile that Stiles hasn’t ever seen before and that looks fantastic on him. Stiles smiles back in a way that probably looks deranged.

They stay like that, smiling at each other, until Stiles starts to feel slightly moronic. And then he starts feeling sleepy, which—oh, crap, what time is it? 

“I should go soon,” he says, reluctantly. “I didn’t tell my dad that I would be out super late, and he’s probably worried.”

“Of course.” Derek stands up and goes to fetch his pants, looking like he doesn’t like being reminded of the existence of fathers or the fact that Stiles lives with one. He thinks about telling Derek that his dad is going to want to know why Stiles is coming home in just his boxers, and Stiles is going to have to find an answer that isn’t ‘because a werewolf ripped my pants off.’ He’s pretty sure that Derek would make some pretty entertaining faces if Stiles brought that up, and maybe offer to sew Stiles’ jeans back together.

On the other hand: not reminding Derek that Stiles is a teenager might need to be the order of the day.

Stiles puts on his remaining un-ripped clothes, and Derek follows him to the door. Stiles would like to say that their silence is companionable, but he's not sure. In the doorway, Stiles turns around to face him, feeling like he needs to say something to sort of--summarize the night's events or something, provide some sort of closure. Derek is meeting his eyes, but his expression is 100% opaque.

"So I--we--um. I'll see you... Later?"

"I'm sorry about your pants," Derek says.

"Hey, ain’t no thang," Stiles says, and immediately wishes he could swallow himself. "oh my God, this is so awkward, is it always this awkward after sex?"

"In my experience, yes," Derek says, which is some comfort at least.

“Well. Wonderful, then, because I happen to love awkward, it’s actually my favorite way to be.” Stiles rubs his hands together and licks his lips, and now he’s pretty sure that Derek is silently laughing at him. “Right, see you around, I guess?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t mind it if you stopped by again.” Derek puts a hand on his shoulder, which comes pretty close to being a manly platonic goodbye gesture, except that Derek lets his hand linger and brushes his thumb against Stiles’ neck, which makes Stiles’ knees get real stupid. 

“’K.” Derek drops his hand, and Stiles starts walking backwards in the direction of his jeep. “Bye, then.”

Derek smiles and gives him a little finger-wave, which is something that Stiles has never seen before and might never see again. He waves back, surprised. “Goodnight, Stiles.” 

“’Night, sleep well!” Stiles says, and Derek laughs and shuts the door. Stiles turns around and walks back to his truck, the discomfort dissipating as giddiness takes over. He feels a rush of nervous energy, and can’t stop himself from jumping and then pounding out a short rhythm on his truck’s window before opening the door and getting into the driver’s seat. 

He still doesn’t know Derek very well at all. The chances that this will blow up in his face are probably high. He’s kind of reminded of the way he felt right at the beginning, when he first put the clues together and realized what Scott had turned into—alarmed, even scared, but positive that he wants to be along for the ride. 

He speeds like hell on the drive back to his house, and rolls down his window, and laughs to himself and yells nothing-words into the early morning air.


End file.
